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LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 
AND 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
NEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO - DALLAS 
ATLANTA + SAN FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN & CoO., LimitTep 
LONDON + BOMBAY + CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 


THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lim. 


TORONTO 


LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


AND 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 


A STUDY OF OBJECTIVES 
IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 


BY ; 
ADELAIDE TEAGUE ‘CASE, Px.D. 


TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 


Jem ork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1924 


All rights reserved 


Corrricut, 1924, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 





Set up and printed. 
Published October, 1924. 


Printed in the United States of America by 
J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK 


PREFACE 


I am glad to have opportunity to point out both 
the importance and the timeliness of the investigation 
that is reported in this book. 

We are living within what is perhaps the most 
serious crisis that the Christian religion has had to 
confront. ‘The most serious because everything that 
our religion has held precious, literally everything, is 
subjected to re-examination from new points of view. 
The dominance of the scientific method; the evolu- 
tionary view of all life, man’s whole cultural life in- 
cluded; critical historical methods employed in the 
study of the Bible and of all religions; the overwhelm- 
ing social issues precipitated by modern industrialism 
—all these are forces that play upon the very brain 
and the very heart of religion. Momentous changes 
are bound to occur either within Christian thought 
and experience, or else in the position of Christianity 
within Western culture. 

Whether Christianity will take up into itself these 
modern developments, permitting itself to be changed 
accordingly; or whether, resisting change, it will 
isolate itself from scientific and ethical culture; or 
whether we shall have henceforth two or more sorts 
of Christianity, remains to be seen. But the issues 
are becoming definite, and they are beginning to be 
argued in the court of the laity. 

Vv 


vi PREFACE 


One new type of thought, conscious of itself as 
Christian, has disengaged itself from customary re- 
straints. It is characterized by (a) a determination 
to think the problem of life anew under the presuppo- 
sitions of modern science, (b) appreciation of the new 
social issues, and (c) a conviction that life-principles 
inherent in the religion of Jesus are of permanent and 
commanding value. These three marks will serve to 
identify, in a general way, what is called liberal 
theology. 

The scene of the present crisis is not merely the the- 
ologian’s study and classroom. Religious living as 
well as theological thinking is involved. The use of the 
Bible, the apprehension of God, prayer, the fellowship 
and worship of the church, daily conduct and the 
meaning of duty—all are affected. Now, as these are 
matters for the common consciousness of the laity, it 
necessarily follows that a first-magnitude problem of 
religious education is upon our hands. Whether one 
accepts the liberal position or not, one encounters the 
issues, and one makes some sort of adjustment to them. 
Even conservatives, therefore, have reason to add 
something to the indoctrination, accompanied by in- 
citements to individualistic piety, that has character- 
ized the Sunday school. On the other hand, for lib- 
erals who really expect the laity to assimilate and live 
liberal Christianity the problem is nothing less than 
that of providing for the young a fundamentally 
reconstructed educational experience. 

What, then, has been done to provide this neces- 
sary religious intelligence and this reconstructed ex- 


PREFACE | Vil 


perience? Do the young, even within broad-minded 
congregations, have opportunity to grow up intelli- 
gently liberal and socially consecrated? Does current 
practice provide enough information to produce even 
intelligent conservatives? How many questions in 
the whole field of religious education are as important 
as this? Dr. Case’s work is the only one that an- 
swers it. 

This investigation is peculiarly timely as well as 
important. It is timely not only because our social 
strains are increasing, but also because of the re- 
surgence in America of religious conflicts that most 
of us supposed we had left behind for good. How far 
could these conflicts have been obviated if religious 
education, for the last quarter-century, had aimed 
definitely at religious intelligence? In any case, our 
only hope of anything better than a skin-deep and 
therefore impermanent healing of our discords, 1s pop- 
ular religious education that, in point of thought and 
of ethical experience, is genuinely fundamental; for 
appeal is being made to the laity on basic issues. 
These issues have to be faced in legislative bodies 
both civil and ecclesiastical, in the administration of 
congregations, and in personal religious living. Even 
the secular news sheets are peddling religious discus- 
sions. In a situation like this it is timely to ask, as 
Dr. Case has done: Does current religious education 
fit the people at large for the tasks of religious ad- 
justment that already are upon them? 

Before treatment, diagnosis! Let us not hasten to 
prescribe changes in curriculum and method until we 


vill PREFACE 


ascertain our internal condition and scan our present 
resources. This book is for those who appreciate 
painstaking educational diagnosis. But I have no 
hesitation in saying that, whether one’s convictions be 
liberal or conservative, the outcomes of this study 
will indicate to any Christian educator the shortest 


road to his goal. 
GEORGE A. COE. 


CONTENTS 


[EYRE OR Pia) aia BM Ga etl ASG ALAA Malh na Ark dag es 
CHAPTER 
I. INTRODUCTION Say | ; ek tke 


Il. Tuer DIstiInctTive repeal oF LIBERAL 
CHRISTIANITY AND THEIR IMPLIED EDU- 
CATIONAL OBJECTIVES . ... By 


Ill. Tur Distinctive Positions oF reek 
CHRISTIANITY AND THEIR IMPLIED EDU- 
CATIONAL OBJECTIVES (continued) 


IV. Ossnctives As Derinep sy LEADING 
Writrers IN Reuigious Epucation. Ta 
Wuat Extent Do Tuesr EXPRESS THE 
PosiITIoNs oF LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY? . 


V. Ossectives ANNOUNCED BY ORGANIZATIONS 
FOR Reuicgious EpucaTion. Do THESE 
REPRESENT THE EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES 
IMPLICIT IN THE LisERAL MOVEMENT? 


VI. Currgicutum Opgsectives. How Far Do 
THE TrextTsooks Usep spy LEADING PRoT- 
ESTANT DENOMINATIONS RECOGNIZE THE 
Issues ImPorRTANT FOR LIBERAL CHRIS- 
TIANITY AND SEEK TO Meret THEM FROM 
A LiperAL Point or Vipw? . .. . 


VII. Tue Competency or Reticious WorKERS 
To DEAL WITH THE OBJECTIVES oF LiIB- 
ERAL CHRISTIANITY. ARE THE WORKERS 
Wuo Are IN Direct ToucH WITH THE 
PrOPLE PREPARED TO DEAL WITH THE 
Facts AND STANDARDS INVOLVED IN THE 
ISTBURAL. WEOVEMENT (oh) ou ahh Dae 


WD a UON CLUSION. bc. ch. os 
BIBLIOGRAPHY . 


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i. 


LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 
AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 


CHAPTER I 


INTRODUCTION 


Onz of the most conspicuous features in the life 
of Protestantism in America in the last twenty years 
has been the movement for religious education.t De- 
partments of religious education have been organized 
in nearly all the large denominations. Colleges and 
universities, in steadily increasing numbers, are creat- 
ing professorships and offering courses in religious ed- 
ucation. Professionally trained workers are uniting 
in organizations. Recent developments such as Daily 
Vacation Bible Schools and Week Day Schools of Re- 
ligion have set up machinery (special equipment, text- 
books, administrative bodies, etc.) for their distinctive 
functions. Buildings specially designed for religious 
education are being constructed. An immense amount 

+1903, the year in which the Religious Education Associa- 
tion was organized, may be taken as a convenient date to 
mark the rise of this movement. The teaching of religion 
is of course nothing new, and religious education in a non- 


technical sense has always been characteristic of Christianity. 
3 


4 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


of literature is published every year. Promotion 
agencies are spreading rapidly. With an efficiency 
which in its administrative aspects approaches, if it 
does not equal, the proverbial efficiency of American 
business interests, Protestantism in America has been 
organizing for religious education.” 

The last twenty years, in which these developments 
in religious education have taken place, have wit- 
nessed likewise a great acceleration of another and 
larger movement which has been going on within 
Protestant churches for half a century,?—a move- 
ment which aims at nothing less than a reconstruc- 
tion of Protestantism itself. That there has been pro- 
found discontent with traditional Christianity, even 
an upheaval within the ranks of Christianity, is clear 
from evidences on all sides. A distinguished profes- 
sor of history began a series of lectures to college stu- 
dents in 1913 with the words: 


We are in the midst of a religious revolution! The “old 
régime” of immemorial belief and custom is vanishing be- 
fore our eyes. Faiths so old that they come to us from 


*See foreword in Religious Education, June, 1923. “Feverish 
activity marks the production of text-books, the propaganda 
for new organizations, the advocacy of novel methods and 
the agitation for enlarged institutions.” An account of the 
rapid development of the movement for Religious Education 
will be found in the report, “Twenty Years’ Progress in Re- 
ligious Education,” by Henry F. Cope, published in Religious 
Education for October, 1923. See also President Arlo Brown’s 
A History of Religious Education in Recent Times, published 
in 1923. 

* Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859. 


INTRODUCTION 5 


the prehistoric world are yielding to the discoveries of 
yesterday. Institutions that have embodied these faiths 
and held the allegiance of the civilized world are now 
crumbling to pieces or transforming themselves wherever 
the new forces of revolution touch and penetrate. (James 
T. Shotwell, The Religious Revolution of Today, p. 1.) 


The same position is taken by a sociologist who, 
writing on religion, says, “Like all other institutions, 
religion is in revolution.” * Both of these men hold 
that any progress in religion must involve acceptance 
of, and not opposition to, the revolutionary changes 
that are taking place throughout our culture. The 
historian’s attitude is stated as follows: 


So it is possible that the revolution which we are an- 
alysing may offer for the onward march some such in- 
spiration out of the very heart of its very destructive 
forces. 

One thing is sure, that inspiration must be found there 
or not at all. It must be armed with the strength of the 
conqueror, not with the mere protest of defeat. (Shotwell, 
The Religious Revolution, p. 150.) 


The sociologist who has been quoted maintains a 
more positive thesis: 


But the religious revolution has now given religion the 
opportunity to become a dynamic rather than a static 
thing—to become “experimental,” as it were; at least, to 
base itself upon the experience and needs of men in a 
present world.... The religious revolution need not, 
then, end in chaos and irreligion. It can and should end, 


“Charles A. Ellwood, The Reconstruction of Religion, p. 1. 


6 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


if guided by intelligence, in a new era of rational religious 
faith. (Ellwood, The Reconstruction of Religion, p. 30.)° 


Certain groups within Protestant churches recognize 
the elements of change, at the same time earnestly 
deploring them. An admirably clear exposition of 
this attitude is found in a recent book from which 
the following is quoted: 


In the sphere of religion, in particular, the present time 
is a time of conflict. The great redemptive religion which 
has always been known as Christianity is battling against 
a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the 
more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes 
use of traditional Christian terminology. (J. Gresham 
Machen, Christianity and Inberalism, p. 2.) 


Again from the same (p. 177): 


The present is a time not for ease or pleasure, but for 
earnest and prayerful work. A terrible crisis unquestion- 
ably has arisen in the Church. In the ministry of evan- 
gelical churches are to be found hosts of those who reject 
the gospel of Christ. 


Recognized from outside Protestantism, recognized 
and attacked from within, the movement for religious 
reconstruction is exceedingly significant. Although 
among its supporters there are differences in point 
of view, its general outlines are reasonably clear. It 
has grown historically from an effort to reconcile 


*It is of course not suggested that these views are held by 
all historians or sociologists. They are quoted as representing 
opinions of leaders in fields other than that of religion. 


INTRODUCTION 7 


Christianity with “the two outstanding facts in our 
civilization—science and democracy.” ® Not only does 
it refuse to recognize any incompatibility between 
science and religion, but it insists upon the religious 
character of scientific investigation itself and desires 
increasing scientific knowledge and control within its 
own field. A statement of this attitude 1s found in 
Dr. Gerald B. Smith’s Social Idealism and the Chang- 
ing Theology where he says (p. 92): 


Theological scholarship in Protestant seminaries is 
rapidly committing itself without reserve to the scientific 
method, which means the ideal of searching for truth 
without pledging oneself beforehand to uphold the doc- 
trines approved by the church. 


See also on p. 173: 


The scientific ideal is gaining such control that it must 
be reckoned with as the approved method of formulating 
conclusions in the realm of religious belief. 


Convinced of the value of the Christian religion for 
the progress of humanity, this movement seeks to 
interpret the principles of Jesus in terms of the issues 
of our present civilization: 


If, then, Christianity is sincerely interested in the quality 
of human spirits, in the motives and ideals which dominate 
personality, she must be interested in the economic and 
industrial problems of our day. (Fosdick, Christianity and 
Progress, p. 11.) 


® Hillwood, p. 2. See especially chapters 1, 5 and 11. 


8 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


The movement for reconstruction is impatient with 
the restrictions of ecclesiasticism but it desires no 
break with historic Christianity, holding that liberal- 
ism represents the inevitable next step in Christian 
progress. Its point of view involves a series of shifts 
in emphasis, the full significance of which is just be- 
ginning to be felt. In general, it is less concerned with 
the restatement or rejection of traditional dogmas— 
though much has been attempted along this line— 
than with the recognition of Christianity as a dynamic 
factor in the moral progress of humanity. Dr. Wil- 
liam Austin Smith expressed this position when he 
sald: 

When the Church shall be willing to take some of the 
magic out of the doctrine of the Incarnation, and put mo- 
rality in it, we shall make religion a more effective imple- 
ment of fellowship. (War and the Churches, pamphlet, 


p. 8.) 


It tends to define its concepts less in theological terms 
than in terms of social psychology and ethics. Its 
standards are social standards and its goal the crea- 
tion of a new human society, the democracy or the 
commonwealth of God. It is even interpreted as not 
primarily a reform movement, not remedial, but rad- 
ical and creative. The word “radical” has however 
somewhat confusing connotations; so too with the 
word “modernist.” “Progressive” means little or 
nothing. In spite of their awkwardness, the terms 


INTRODUCTION 9 


“liberal Christianity” and “the liberal movement” are 
probably the most clearly understood.’ 

It is the purpose of this study to consider the mu- 
tual relationship of these two developments in modern 
Protestantism,—the movement for religious education 
and the movement for the reconstruction of religion. 
In particular it will be concerned with objectives, and 
will address itself to the inquiry: To what extent has 
_ Protestant religious education adopted the educational 
purposes implied in the liberal movement? 


Five lines of investigation will be undertaken: 


1. First, we shall seek to discover the dis- 
tinctive positions of liberal Christiamty. For 
this purpose the writings of numerous authors 
recognized as liberal will be examined. Since, in 
the nature of the case, few of these writings dis- 
cuss education, we must search for their religious 
points of view and from them infer the educa- 
tional objectives that are wmplied. 

2. Objectives as defined by leading writers in 
religious education will then be examined. We 
shall need to know to what extent these leaders 
recognize and adopt the positions of liberal Chris- 
tianity. 

‘It is not maintained that this tendency toward religious 
reconstruction is the sole or dominant tendency in Protestant 
thought today. Further, it is the function of this study 
neither to acclaim nor condemn this movement but simply 
to note its existence. The writer has no wish, however, to 
conceal the fact that her own views are in substantial sym- 
pathy with those of Protestant liberalism, 


10 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


3. The next step will be to inquire whether 
the objectives announced by organizations for re- 
ligious education represent adequately the pur- 
poses implicit in the liberal movement. 

4. We shall then be ready to examine curricu- 
lum objectives—the aims as stated in textbooks 
used by leading Protestant denominations—to as- 
certain whether they show a recognition of the 
issues important for liberal Christianity and an 
attempt to meet them from the liberal point of 
view. 

5. There will remain the question whether 
workers in Protestant religious education—many 
of whom are trained by educational leaders, rep- 
resent organizations for religious education, and 
use denominational textbooks—are themselves 
prepared to deal with the facts and standards 
involved in the liberal movement. We shall there- 
fore undertake a brief inquiry into the compe- 
tency of religious workers to deal with the objec- 
tives of liberal Christianity. 


The conclusion, in addition to summarizing the evi- 
dence presented, will interpret the significance of it 
and will offer a few practical suggestions for the re- 
construction of Protestant religious education. 


CHAPTER II 


Tue Distinctive Posirions or LIBERAL CHRIS- 
TIANITY AND THEIR IMPLIED EDUCATIONAL 
OBJECTIVES 


Wuat are the distinctive positions of liberal Chris- 
tianity and what are the objectives for religious edu- 
cation implied in these positions? While it is true 
that a specific type of religion requires for its self- 
maintenance and growth a specific type of religious 
education, yet the educational objectives that are 
implicit in liberalism have never been stated in any 
definite and comprehensive fashion. The reasons are 
these: (1) The recognized field of religion has broad- 
ened so enormously that it becomes difficult to set up 
distinctive objectives. (2) Liberalism is in its essen- 
tial nature a progressive movement, always changing, 
always in flux; its conclusions are never fixed or 
static; it has no unalterable “deposit of faith” to 
teach. It does not desire uniformity of opinion.t 


+The very essence of Protestantism is the recognition that 
we have not reached finality, but must be ever seeking.” 
(McGiffert, A Teaching Church, in Religious Education, Feb., 
1921, p. 6.) 
“Not semper idem but semper alterum is the keynote of 
science. Each discovery of something new involves the dis- 
11 


12 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


(3) Until recently the element of protest in liberal 
thinking has often loomed so large as partially to 
obscure its constructive contributions. Teachers have 
seen more clearly what not to do than what to teach 
or how to teach. (4) Many, if not most, liberal 
writers have been preoccupied with ultimate aims, 
with the great vision of a redeemed humanity; they 
have not concerned themselves with immediate ob- 
jectives. Pointing in the general direction of the City 
of God, they have failed to give the traveler guidance 
for the next turn in the road. (5) Many leaders and 
writers take a thoroughly liberal position along certain 
lines without recognizing its implications elsewhere. 
One sees, for instance, a church school where scientific 
Bible study is carried on but where results of the 
scientific study of educational processes are obvi- 
ously unknown.’ (6) Incorrect accounts of liberalism 
carding of something old. Above all it progresses by doubting 
rather than believing.” (James T. Shotwell, The Religious 
Revolution of Today, p. 101.) 

?Instances of similar inconsistencies abound. W. H. 
Fitchett, in Where the Higher Criticism Fails, says, on p. 9, 
“An intelligent Christian must be willing, not only frankly, 
but gladly, to accept every conclusion about the Bible which 
has adequate historic proof.” Later (p. 10), he declares his 
belief “that Moses wrote the Pentateuch” although not the 
account of his own funeral with which the story closes. 
Bishop Manning, in his Address of the Bishop in the Con- 
vention of the Diocese of New York, May 8, 1923, insists 
that he has no quarrel with science. Thus, on p. 4, “The 
. supposed conflict between science and religion which for 
some decades has tended to chill religious faith is seen now 
to have no reality,” and on p. 6, “We find nothing in the 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 13 


are sometimes heard from those of its opponents who 
are willing to make specific charges without sufficient 
evidence. This leads to general confusion. A state- 
ment in some detail of the outstanding positions char- 
acteristic of liberal Christianity and a summary of 
the purposes of religious education that may be in- 
ferred from them, is therefore very much needed. 

Investigation of recent writings of liberal Protes- 
tants ° reveals certain issues as the immediate, neces- 
sary concern in their opinion, of Christian leaders and 
teachers. Such a study further reveals distinct points 
of view in dealing with these issues. Both the issues 
and the ways of dealing with them are significant for 
determining the objectives of religious education. 

The issues recognized may be conveniently classified 
under the following headings: 

I The Bible; II Theological Dogmas; III The His- 
torical Jesus; IV Social Welfare; V The Reconstruc- 
tion of Society; VI The Political State; VII Interna- 
tional and Inter-racial Problems; VIII Human Nature; 
IX The Educational Process; X The Church. In the 


Christian faith which conflicts with the scientific theory of 
evolution;” but he goes on (p. 7) to affirm belief in tradi- 
tional dogmas including the Virgin Birth as necessary for 
ministers in his church, and asserts that there is “no room for 
difference” in these matters. 

*Only those who are widely recognized as representative 
of groups within the Protestant churches in the United States 
are quoted. Religious leaders who are outside the fellowship 
of Protestantism are not included; and leaders in Canada and 
England only if their writings are very generally known and 
read in this country. 


14 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


nature of the case these divisions can not be com- 
pletely exclusive of one another, but the overlapping 
need not lead to confusion. 

In this and the following chapter we shall endeavor 
to set forth the points of view of liberal writers on 
these issues, with a sufficient number of citations to 
give breadth and definiteness to our inquiry. At the 
end of each chapter, the educational objectives im- 
plicit in the positions described will be _ briefly 
indicated. 

I. Tur Breie* 


1. Liberalism encourages historical method in Bib- 
lical criticism and accepts without equivocation the 
results of scientific inquiry. In Reconstruction in 
Theology, President King of Oberlin defines this type 
of research: 


Positively, higher criticism may be defined as a careful 
historical and literary study of a book to determine its 
unity, age, authorship, literary form and_ reliability. 
(Pas t2) 


Professor Charles F. Kent points out its value for 
clarifying one’s knowledge of the original sources: 


Interpreted in the light of contemporary literature and 
language, most of the obscurities of the Old Testament melt 
away. Modern research in the fields of Semitic philology 


*“The Church is undoubtedly passing quietly through a 
revolution in its conception and attitude toward the Bible, 
more fundamental and far-reaching than that represented by 
its precursor, the Protestant Reformation; but its real sig- 
nificance is daily becoming more apparent.” (Kent: Origin 
and Permanent Value of the Old Testament, p. 16.) 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 15 


and syntax and the discovery of older texts and versions 
have put into the hands of the translators new and valuable 
tools for making clear to all the thoughts in the minds of 
the original writers of the Old Testament. (Kent: Origin 
and Permanent Values of the Old Testament, p. 12.) 


and specifically on the New Testament: 


The gospels, like the historical books of the Old Testa- — 
ment, embody older oral and written sources which reflect 
the earliest impression that Jesus’ personality and words 
made on the minds of his followers. The first step, there- 
fore, in the quest of the real Jesus is to distinguish and 
to separate these oldest records from the later variant 
accounts which blur or conceal the original portrait. The 
more vital the questions involved, the more important is 
it that the records be carefully studied and tested by the 
most thorough methods known to modern historical re- 
search. (Kent: The Life and Teachings of Jesus, preface, 


p. v.) 


In his very careful description of the historical 
method in connection with the New Testament, Dr. 
Moffatt emphasizes the openmindedness with which 
it must be approached: 


In the department of New Testament study, as elsewhere, 
the historical method has to maintain its rights over and | 
again. Mainly against two encroaching theories. One 
is that the function of historical research is to provide 
evidence for foregone dogmatic conclusions. This would 
mean the very death of the historical spirit in the study 
of the New Testament... . 

We shall return to this point in a moment. Meantime, 
we observe that the other foe is the a priori abstract method, 


16 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


which develops an idea of Christianity out of special con- 
siderations, till it really matters little or nothing what has 
happened in history. (James Moffatt: The Approach to the 
New Testament, pp. 148, 144. See especially Chapters V, 
VI, VII, and VIII.) 


2. Historical and scientific study has led liberals 
to discard the “authority of the Bible” in the usually 
accepted sense. 


In these later days God has taken the Bible from the 
throne of infallibility on which Protestantism sought to 
place it. (Kent: Origin and Permanent Value of the Old 
Testament, p. 32.) 


Students of the rediscovered Old Testament also recog- 
nize, in the light of a broader and more careful study, the 
fact, so often and so fatally overlooked in the past, that 
its authority lies not in the field of natural science, not 
even of history in the limited sense. (Kent: Ibid., p. 26.) 


3. Liberal writers lay much less stress on the 
miracles of both Old and New Testament than has 
been the custom in the past. There are several pos- 
sible explanations for this: (1) The growth of the 
scientific outlook on life implies the recognition of 
the uniformity of causal law. (2) Scientific crit- 
icism—the investigation of manuscripts, study of 
contemporary customs, etc—has made it possible 
to trace the development of some of the miracle stories 
and to understand how the events to which they refer 
may have taken place without the interposition of 
supernatural powers. (3) No doubt one of the rea- 
sons that miracles are not emphasized is due to the 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 17 


fact that liberals are in general more interested in 
moral values than in accounts of physical marvels. 


The modern man cannot conceive of any break in the 
causal, genetic process. True, he is ready to admit that 
there may be events which are not yet located in any 
of its known formulas, but in such a conception there is 
no place for that which, before its recent apologetic 
manipulation, the word miracle stood—an event out of its 
causal series. (Shailer Mathews: The Gospel and the 
Modern Man, p. 46.) 


And, above all, the modern mind has been led to feel 
that the identification of religion with the acceptance of 
marvelous events degrades religion from a supreme spiritual 
experience to an acceptance of belief in a non-rational 
universe. So there are many who feel that insistence upon 
miracles is deadening to the expansion of faith. (Leighton 
Parks, What Is Modernism? p. 33.) 


The further back we go towards barbarous superstition, 
the more prominent becomes the conception of prodigy as 
the only method by which divine operation can be known. 
The nearer we approach to the reverent interpretation of 
it in our own times, the more is God conceived to act in 
accordance with the uniformity of nature. Even when 
events occur inexplicable according to natural law as thus 
far known, we do not expect them to remain unintelligible. 
We expect the naturalist will sooner or later discover the 
process, and while science as such is voluntarily self-limited 
to the study of secondary causes, we think the knowledge 
of these only a help to the theologian. God as we know 
Him, the real and living God in whom we actually live and 
move and have our being, is “not a God of confusion” but 
of intelligibility, of order and law. 


18 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


. .. In principle there is no reason why we should not 
apply the method of historical interpretation to biblical 
accounts of miracle precisely as we apply it in the case 
of witchcraft, or demon possession, or in the expectation 
of an immediately impending dissolution of the world. 
Miracle is no longer to us a necessary mode of divine 
revelation. (Benjamin W. Bacon, The Success and Failure 
of Liberalism, in the Yale Review, Oct. 1923, pp. 91, 92.) 


4. The great value of the Biblical records as re- 
\ ligious literature lies in the fact that they are a 
\ description of growth in religious experience. 


The Bible is permeated with the spirit of growth; growth 
of the world and its peoples, of their customs, institutions, 
laws, moral and religious progress. Because of this spirit 
it is most sympathetically interpreted by means of the con- 
cept of development. Unconsciously, we are invited by 
our experience with these Scriptures to think of life’s prob- 
lems in the light of progress. This is so true that any bad 
or backward person or standard of action in the Bible is 
best judged by standards further on in the book. Both 
the Old and the New Testaments record movements of the 
spirit which suggest that man is approaching ever nearer 
to the destiny of a moral being in a world of personality 
as well as one of material forces. So then, though a book 
cannot keep pace with advances in knowledge, it may be 
congenial with the mood of essential, advancing humanity. 
The germ and the logic of an incalculable improvement are 
of the very genius of the Bible. (Elihu Grant, What Shall 
We Think of the Bible? in [Rufus Jones ed.] Religious 
Foundations, pp. 88, 89.) 


The inconsistencies and imperfect teachings which are 
revealed by a critical study of the Old Testament are also 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 19 


but a few of the many indices that it is the record of a 
gradually unfolding revelation. (Kent: Origin and Perma- 
nent Value of the Old Testament, p. 29.) 


The fallacy at the heart of the situation was the failure 
to recognize the fact that the Old Testament is a record of 
progress. The accounts which it contains of the making 
of the world are true in the sense of being true records 
of what the Hebrews thought about these matters, several 
thousand years ago. But mankind would be dull indeed 
if after all these centuries of residence upon this planet 
we know no more about it than was known a thousand 
years before Christ in the Mediterranean provinces of Asia. 
(George Hodges: How to Know the Bible, p. 12.) 


5. A most striking point in the writings of liberals 
is the fact that they are enormously interested in the 
life and teachings of Jesus. They are seeking to 
discover Jesus the Galilean as he really was, apart 
from the presuppositions of Judaistic tradition and the 
accretions of Pauline theology. To them the Gospels 
are of unique significance. The results of their study 
will be discussed under Topic III (pp. 33-36). It should 
be recognized here, however, that for liberals the 
Bible is supremely important because it contains 
records, however fragmentary, of the life of Jesus. 


It is because the Modernist believes that the reality of 
the historic Jesus has been obscured by the mists of 
theological speculation that he is desirous of finding, if 
possible, what is the bedrock fact in the Gospel narrative. 
(Leighton Parks, What Is Modernism? p. 13.) 


It is a pity that our sympathies and prejudices weaken 
our appreciation of Jesus as an historical force. But such 


20 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


he must be considered by any historian of modern culture. 
If we could rid ourselves of all conventional attitudes and 
professional language with its suggestion of cant, our ap- 
preciation of Jesus would be seen to be no expression of 
ecclesiastical bigotry, but a thoroughly objective estimate 
of his place in the progress of human life from the physical 
to the spiritual. Theology, important as it is to religion, 
must ultimately shape itself within the limits set by 
religious-social experience in which faith in personal values 
ever more perfectly revealed in history and in the cosmos 
has its indispensable office. 

When we thus approach the spiritual history of modern 
times we are at once struck with the failure of professed 
Christian thought and idealism to appreciate Jesus as a 
teacher, or, better, revealer of elemental spiritual laws. 
Christians have been very keen to believe the gospel about 
Jesus but they have not been so eager to receive the gospel 
of Jesus. Even a superficial examination of Christian 
thought and dogma will make this plain. It is certainly 
most remarkable that only within the last century while 
democracy has really been in the making have men seriously 
begun to study the words and life of the Jesus of the 
Gospels. (Shailer Mathews, The Spiritual Interpretation 
of History, pp. 208, 209.) 

6. With the discriminating attitude of science— 
the weighing of evidence to determine dates, author- 
ship, etc.—liberal Protestants would unite an attitude 
of ethical discrimination which seeks to evaluate 
individuals, historic events, the theology, the poetry, 
and drama, of the Bible, on the basis of the ethical 
standards of Jesus. 

This point of view is described by Dean Hodges, 
who said: 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 21 


When Jesus told the disciples that Elijah was mistaken, 
he liberated us from allegiance to the Old Testament, and 
bound us only to New Testament truth,—to Old Testament 
truth certified by the knowledge and spirit we are of. When 
we encounter errors of statement and deficiencies of doc- 
trine in these pages we are not to shut our eyes to them, 
or to conceal them, to deny them, or to behave ourselves 
in any unnatural or insincere manner. We are to follow 
the example of his frankness. Out of bondage to these 
ancient books, he has set us free. (George Hodges: How 
to Know the Bible, p. 21.) 


Such an attitude brings into prominence historical 
records, which, although they deal with an important 
period in.the life of the Hebrew people, have been 
neglected because they have been regarded as uncanon- 
ical—notably the heroic accounts of the Maccabean 
period. 

Professor Kent emphasizes this point: 

The first book of Maccabees is in many ways the best 
history that has come down from ancient Israel. Luther’s 
conclusion that it was more deserving of a place in the 
Old Testament canon than, for example, the book of Esther, 
is now being widely accepted both in theory and practice. 
The religious spirit in which it is written, the importance 
of the events with which it deals, and the faithfulness with 
which they are recorded, all confirm this conclusion. 
(Kent: Makers and Teachers of Judaism, Vol. IV of the 
Historical Bible, p. 189.) 


Biblical characters whom tradition has placed be- 
yond criticism or who have been criticized seldom in 
the past, have been subjected to the test of Christian 
idealism. 


22 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


To quote from Kent’s Historical Bible, a text-book 
widely used among liberals: 


Gifted with great possibilities and the heir of a mighty 
empire, Solomon, in the light of later events, proved a 
glittering failure both as a man and as a ruler. He who 
was counted by later tradition the wisest proved to be in 
many respects the most foolish king who ever sat on 
Israel’s throne. (Vol. II, p. 208.) 


Samson has sometimes been held up as a worthy char- 
acter. This tendency, however, is dangerous. He must, 
of course, be measured by the standards of his age, but 
even so he is far from noble. . . . Samson is a signal ex- 
ample of a man who possessed great gifts, but failed to 
consecrate them to a noble cause. (Vol. II, p. 60.) 


His [Paul’s] picture of a pre-existent, supernatural 
Messiah who is to come again from heaven to judge man- 
kind and to establish a new kingdom on earth, is very 
different from the simple portraits of Jesus in the oldest 
gospel records; but he shared these beliefs with the primi- 
tive church. They are not his unique or permanent con- 
tributions to Christianity. It is, therefore, unfortunate 
that Christian theology in the past has been built more on 
the teachings of Paul than those of Jesus. (Vol. VI, p. 
236.) 


Elijah’s conception of Jehovah, however, appears to have 
been the same as that of Moses and the earlier leaders of 
his race. They were quite willing that Baal should be 
worshipped in Phoenicea; but in Jehovah’s land there was 
no place for a heathen God. (Vol. III, p. 29.) 


He [Joseph] grew up a spoiled, egotistical boy, with false 
ideas of life. (Vol. I, p. 126.) 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 23 


7. The relationship of both Hebrew and Christian 
cultures, including religious beliefs, with the cultures 
of adjacent groups is recognized and studied. Chris- 
tian tradition is seen to possess no immunity from 
the influence of pagan customs. 


It is progressively recognizing that Christianity did not 
come into existence and grow up in quarantine from all 
pagan influence; but that, on the contrary, it felt and 
responded to the same historical exigencies which con- 
tributed to the making of pagan religions. (G. B. Smith, 
Social Idealism and the Changing Theology, p. 95.) 


Certain parts of the Old Testament itself testify that 
the wealth of tradition, of institutions, of laws, and religious 
ideas, gradually committed to the Semitic ancestors of the 
Hebrews and best preserved by the Babylonians, was not 
lost, but, enriched and purified, has been transmitted to 
us through its pages. A careful comparison of the Biblical 
and Babylonian accounts of the creation and the flood 
leaves little doubt that there is a close historical connection 
between these accounts. (Kent: The Origin and Permanent 
Value of the Old Testament, p. 55.) 


By virtue of their democracy and their appeal to uni- 
versal human needs the mystery-religions proved Chris- 
tianity’s strongest competitor in the first century. At the 
same time, like Judaism and the Greek philosophies and 
even the emperor-worship, they did much to prepare the 
‘minds of men for the reception of Christianity. As was 
inevitable, when competition was so close and constant 
and when there was so much in them that was essen- 
tially good, they exerted a powerful influence upon Chris- 
tianity, as is shown, for example, not only in the language 
but also in the thought of Paul and in the rites which 


24 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


were ultimately adopted by the Christian Church. (Kent: 
Work and Teachings of the Apostles, Vol. VI, in the His- 
torical Bible, p. 19.) 


Our current Protestant fiction has it that our own re- 
ligion rests on the Old Testament. As a matter of histori- 
cal fact, it is, as to doctrines, a synthesis of about equal 
parts Pharisaism, Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, and the common 
elements in all the mystery cults. (Edwin T. Brewster, 
The Understanding of Religion, p. 127.) 


8. When the Bible is released from its isolation as 
supernatural and super-historical, a study of the 
Biblical accounts of the early Christians quite 
naturally leads to further study of the history of 
Christianity up to the present day. An increased 
interest in all sorts of history is characteristic of our 
age. It is not surprising, therefore, that liberal 
Protestants are demanding that more attention be 
given to an unprejudiced historical study of the 
Christian movement. 


Thus it has come about that in planning courses of re- 
ligious study, Protestant teachers have not paid sufficient 
attention to what God has been doing through the Church 
since the year 100 A.D. The old word of Chillingworth 
about the Bible may or may not be true of the Protestant 
religion, but it certainly has been true of Protestant edu- 
cation. The Bible and the Bible alone has been the text 
book of Protestants. A generation has grown up almost 
completely ignorant of the history of the Church since 
post-Biblical times and of the forms in which Christianity 
finds organized expression in the world to-day. For this 
lack we are suffering to-day in many ways—most of all in 
that we have developed among Protestant Christians so 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 25 


little intelligent consciousness of the Church as a whole. 
As a result we lack a public opinion strong enough to sup- 
port those who are trying to unify the churches. To create 
this opinion we must teach our people the history of the 
Christian Church and help them to understand the origin 
and present significance of the main forms of contemporary 
Christianity. (Wiliams Adams Brown, The Church in 
America, p. 293.) 


II. THurotocicAL DogmMas 


The infrequency of references to traditional formu- 
lations of doctrine in the writings of liberal Protes- 
tants 1s indicative of a change of emphasis exceedingly 
important for religious education. Dogmas® were of 
absorbing interest to religious leaders of a few gen- 
erations ago. Most of the Protestant denominations 
retain historic statements of doctrinal belief and make 
use of them in forms of worship or in ordination, re- 
ception of new members, trials for heresy, etc. But 
for liberals the center of interest is elsewhere. The 
affirmations of religion have become no less profound, 
no less commanding but they are of a different sort.® 
This difference is noteworthy because of its bearing 
upon religious education. 

1. The historic creeds are considered primarily in 
the setting in which they were formulated. They are 

>A dogma is understood to be “a doctrine of theology 


officially defined and declared to rest on divine authority.” 
(Mathews and Smith: Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, 


p. 135.) 
*This will be illustrated in the succeeding sections of this 
chapter. 


26 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


not regarded in any sense as absolute but as relative 
to the thought forms and religious issues of their 
times. 


Biblical criticism makes it possible for us to see how 
doctrines have their rise, why they change, what changes 
are for the better and what for the worse, and what the 
place of formal belief is in the total religious life of men. 
Tradition thus becomes the servant of the present and 
not its despot. (G. B. Smith, Social Idealism and the 
Changing Theology, pp. 199 and 200.) 

Even the Apostles Creed was an exceedingly gradual 
development and required centuries to attain its present 
form. (Conrad H. Moehlmann, What are the Fundamentals 
of Christianity?, Journal of Religion, January, 1922, p. 22.)" 


2. Some liberals apparently find little difficulty with 
traditional statements provided (a) that their historic 
character is recognized, (b) that large liberty of in- 
terpretation is allowed, and (c) that with them is 
associated the expression in conduct of Christian 
standards of living. 


But this is a fact: in every communion, even in the 
Roman Catholic, to-day is a growing minority of intelligent 
people who have departed from the traditions of the elders 
and have accepted the new knowledge, and reinterpret 
the old creeds in the light of the facts as they have come 
to see them. The process of change is slower in some 
churches than in others, but even in the most conservative 
and reactionary body there is some change.’ 

In all the churches are men who have come to see that 

"Note this very interesting examination of the Apostles 
Creed and the conclusion that it dates from the 5th and 6th 
century and in its entirety not before the 8th. 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 27 


collective life and action, rather than conformity to creed, 
is the basis of the church. And even as life is more 
important than thought, so the religious community is 
more vital than creeds. Creeds ought to be like guide posts 
along the automobile highway—to guide the traveler, not 
obstruct his going. So used, they are of great value. They 
embody the experience of many generations, an experience 
which if learned and heeded will keep men from error and 
guide them into wisdom. (John Howard Melish, in a sym- 
posium on Creeds and Truth in the World To-morrow, 
August, 1923, p. 235.) 

So with any article of any historic creed or any ancient 
teaching of any church. We can never know too com- 
pletely why men of other days thought as they did, nor 
too accurately what it was they thought. We shall come 
to no harm by conducting our present-day worship or by 
talking about our present-day faith in terms of the science 
of a bygone time, any more than by building our churches 
in a style that men once used also for houses and barns, so 
long as we understand frankly that we are using obsolete 
forms. Religion takes on the unreality of the discarded 
science only when we forget that the science is discarded 
and try to piece together the old garment and the new 
cloth. We may rightly say all the old words in honor of 
the old saints—provided only that we always understand 
precisely what the ancient worthies meant, and precisely 
what we mean, and precisely why the two are or are not 
the same. The danger lies in muddle-headed pretense of 
factitious agreement. (Edwin T. Brewster, The Under- 
standing of Religion, p. 33.) 


3. Others feel that the historic creeds are a hin- 
drance, a block to progressive thinking—that reformu- 
lations or no formulations at all are to be preferred. 


28 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


The chief objection to historic creeds is not that they 
compel us to believe things we have long outgrown, but 
that they relieve us of the responsibility of trying to put 
the things we now believe into teachable form. (McGiffert, 
A Teaching Church, in Religious Education, Feb., 1921, 


p. 6.) 


The business of the church to-day is (1) to translate 
the basic convictions of the Christian Gospel into terms 
intelligible to modern minds, and (2) apply those con- 
victions to modern circumstances. (Fosdick, in a sym- 
posium on Creeds and Truth, in the World To-morrow, 
August, 1923, p. 233.) 


The way out is not the reformulation of creeds. That 
would only burden our descendants with a new phase of 
our problem. It is not openly to flout the old creeds, nor 
privately to whittle them away. They could be quietly 
dropped, both by those who believe them and by those 
who do not. The former especially have a duty in re- 
moving a stumbling block to true Christian progress. 
(Henry Cadbury, ibid., p. 234.) 


The great demand to-day is not for a manipulation of 
our inherited theology into some form more acceptable to 
our modern ways of thinking. It is rather for a frank 
disregard of inherited dogma except by way of historic 
evaluation and a return to the primitive gospel itself; to 
the gospel that founded Christianity, conquered the Roman 
Empire, and embodies the continuous realities of the 
spiritual life. 

. . . Inherited orthodoxy is so colored by outgrown 
philosophies, pre-scientific conceptions, outgrown political 
ideals and prejudices, as to be unusable by many an earnest 
man and woman. To remodel the old house is more ex- 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 29 


pensive than to tear it down and use such materials of it 
as are sound in erecting a new building. (Shailer Mathews, 
The Gospel and the Modern Man, p. 6.) 


4. However they may differ about the usefulness 
of the historic creeds in the churches of the present 
day, liberals are generally agreed that creedal state- 
ments should never be regarded as final, and that they 
should not be made the test of a man’s standing as 
a Christian or the basis of fellowship between 
Christians. 


The trouble with the creeds is not that they claim too 
much, but that they say too little. They are unfortunate 
in their stress upon the intellectual phase of religion. They 
are too readily propositions of alleged fact. They ignore 
the categories of value and conduct, the faculties of feeling 
and of will. To many devout modern men and women, 
truth is not an objective or unchangeable reality, com- 
municable through a statement of words. The most serious 
defect of the creeds is that their intention and use have so 
often been exclusive and defensive rather than inviting and 
affirmative; excommunicative, rather than communicative. 
Their positive, “I believe” has become in practice a negative, 
“Thou shalt not deny.” (Henry A. Cadbury, in the sym- 
posium on Creeds and Truth in the World To-morrow, 
quoted above.) 

... The use of the creeds as restrictive delimitations 
of thinking has been one of the saddest elements in re- 
ligious history. (Fosdick, in the same article.) 


What is the condition of belonging to this age-long and 
world-wide Brotherhood [the Church] united solely by that 
love which is the bond of perfectness, Christ has made 
clear! ‘Ye are my friends,” he said, “if ye do what I have 


30 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


commanded you.” Obedience to Christ’s commands is the 
only condition which Christ has prescribed for membership 
in the Christian Brotherhood. (Lyman Abbott, What 
Christianity Means to Me, p. 51.) 


Dogma is a fingerpost which indicates the way in which 
religious experience is traveling; but it becomes a prison 
for the soul and an arrest of life when it is assumed to be _ 
the final truth of things. (Richard Roberts, The Untried 
Door, p. 72.) 


But they [liberals] are united in the belief that the 
church is called to face all difficulties and to attempt to 
solve them by unfettered inquiry. They do not hold that 
authority and tradition have settled everything so that 
we have only to accept the formulas drawn up in the early 
centuries. (W. R. Inge, What Is a Liberal Christian? in 
the Christian Century, Dec. 15, 1921, p. 11.) 


Just to the extent to which we free ourselves from the 
sense of the finality of the historical dogmas and forms 
which have grown up within the church it is possible to 
recognize the spirit of free inquiry and of constructive 
thought as harmonious with the attitude of the religion of 
Jesus. (Edward Scribner Ames, in Christian Century, 
April 20th, 1922, p. 492.) 


Tolerance is the child of conviction and love. It never 
had any other parentage. To believe strongly and yet 
doubt one’s omniscience is no small achievement, but to 
believe strongly and yet permit a man who does not agree 
with you theologically also to believe strongly, is one of 
the supreme achievements of the spiritual life. (Shailer 
Mathews, The Gospel and the Modern Man, p. 308.) 


The great mass of people in the recital of the Creed do 
not understand the articles in detail. What meaning does 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 31 


the average worshipper attach to the articles, “Of one sub- 
stance with the Father,’ or “He descended into hell’? 
Far deeper and more spiritual bonds than the Creeds hold 
the Church together and inspire the people to go forward. 
(Lawrence, Fifty Years, p. 66.) 


Indeed experience has convinced me that the vital test 
of a young man as he enters a high calling is not as to 
what particular doctrine he believes to-day, but what is 
the essential trend of his thought, what his attitude toward 
the ever-revealing truth; not in what he does, or thinks, 
but what, in the long run, he is, what spirit, character, 
or temper controls him. (Lawrence, ibid., p. 74.) 


5. The theology of liberalism has, especially in 
this country, been profoundly influenced by pragma- 
tism and by the prevailing interest in the social 
sciences and in functional psychology. God is de- 
fined in terms of fellowship (our Father) and of 
purpose (love); and communion with God includes 
communion with our fellow men and cannot isolate us 
from them. Many of the traditional terms are still 
used but with new meaning. For example, “salvation”, 
“sin”, “regeneration”, are no longer doctrinal terms 
in the old sense. They are no longer thought of as 
relating to individuals apart from the common life, 
nor as having any significance apart from the ethical 
demands of a Christian community. This change of 
emphasis’is indicated in the succeeding topics of this 
study. A few quotations here will suffice to show 
what is meant. 

®See Coe: Social Theory, especially Ch. II, The Philo- 
sophic Setting, and Ch. X, The Social Nature of Man. 


32 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


While it is wrong to think that sociology will displace 
theology, yet it is evident that in so far as religion becomes 
a program for the transformation of this world, it must 
depend increasingly upon sociology. Theology itself is, 
indeed, being so modified in a scientific and social direction 
to-day that it is now sometimes difficult, in the case of the 
more socially-minded of our theological thinkers, to tell 
where their sociology ends and their theology begins. We 
may safely conclude, therefore, that sociology, while not 
a substitute for theology, will become the ally of scientific 
theology in attempts at the interpretation and practical 
development of the religious life of man. This is surely, if 
one studies and compares carefully the sociological and 
theological literature of the present, the trend of what is 
actually taking place. (Charles A. Ellwood, Christianity 
and Social Science, p. 23.) 


In the Christian religion, with its central emphasis upon 
love, prayer tends to become, wherever the constructive 
significance of love has not been submerged by ritualism 
or dogmatism, the affirmation of what may be called social 
universalism of essentially democratic tendency. (G. A. Coe, 
The Psychology of Religion, p. 319.) 


When I was a boy I was taught that sin is a relation, 
not between me and my neighbor, but between me and 
God. Subsequent reflection has led me to regard the 
distinction here made as not valid... . The need for any 
such term as sin lies in the fact that we men, in addition 
to constructing the human society in which God and men 
are both sharers, also obstruct it and in some measure 
destroy. (Coe, Social Theory, p. 164.) 

The church is at the parting of the way. If it gave 
one-tenth the attention to developing a keen edge for the 
conscience of the individual, to regenerating itself, to in- 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 33 


terpreting the religious significance of the industrial, eco- 
nomic and social transformations of the present, to Chris- 
tianizing all life which it has been bestowing upon cor- 
rectness of dogmatic phraseology, the Kingdom of God 
should become a more thrilling experience for multitudes. 
(Moehlmann, What Are the Fundamentals of Christianity ?, 
in Journal of Religion, Jan., 1922, p. 26.) 

Salvation of the soul is increasingly conceived to be 
linked up with saving the body, the health, the habits, the 
ideals, the interests—indeed, the whole range of the being. 
Life is more and more being looked upon as a unity in 
which one part cannot be “saved” while the remainder is 
neglected and ignored. (G. H. Betts, The New Program of 
Religious Education, p. 38.) 

In and through his growing participation in the creation 
of an ideal society the pupil will realize his fellowship with 
the Father. (Coe, Social Theory, p. 56.) 


III. Tue Historic Jesus 


The liberal attitude toward the Bible and toward 
traditional theology has released Jesus of Nazareth 
alike from the machinery of a prearranged scheme 
of salvation and from the dead hand of pious super- 
stition. Jesus thus freed becomes the center of the 
liberal movement. Many liberals assert that he has 
never been adequately understood or appreciated in 
the past, that the way of life which he suggested has 
mever been adequately attempted. The phrases, 
“Back to Jesus” and “Forward with Jesus” have been 
used in efforts to discover and understand the Jesus 
of history and to relate his life to the needs of to-day. 


34 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


Important to notice in the attitude of liberals to- 
wards Jesus are: (1) their attempt to avoid bias of 
any sort with respect to the facts of his life; (2) their 
interest in the moral quality of the life he lived in 
distinction from his “miraculous” powers; (3) their 
insistence on the social character of his teachings; (4) 
their emphasis on the importance of meeting present 
social issues in the spirit of Jesus as the primary con- 
dition of fellowship with him, the Christian experience 
being for them the actual experience of trying out 
the principles of Jesus in individual and _ social 
living. 

If we could approach the study of Jesus with minds free 
from preconceptions, we could go straight to the heart of 
the subject. .. . However that may be, we of the West 
are the heirs of our own past, and burdened as we are with 
a legacy of wrong thinking and false sentiments, we must 
needs begin by deliberately clearing away this débris. 
(Alfred E. Zimmern, The Rediscovery of Jesus, in the 
Century Magazine, Dec., 1923, p. 269.) 


This rediscovery of Jesus carries with it a new emphasis 
upon the Kingdom of God as the social ideal which Jesus 
is seeking to realize in the world. We have seen how this 
ideal is being forced upon us by other influences growing 
out of the practical needs of the time. The new theology 
reinforces this emphasis by its study of the nature of the 
Christian religion as revealed to us in the life and teachings 
of its founder. It shows us that Jesus, deeply as He was 
concerned with the individual man, highly as He rated his 
value for God and his capacity for service, never conceived 
of him as an isolated individual. He was one of many 
sons, potential citizens in a society in which loving service 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 35 


was to be the law of all men’s life. (W. A. Brown, The 
Church in America, p. 149.) 


To be a Christian to-day is to be an explorer, a discoverer. 
It is the great adventure of the age to find out how the 
principles of Jesus can be made to work in the actual tasks 
of life. To make work and government Christian—this 
is our great objective. To be a Christian to-day is not 
simply to accept a body of truth, not merely to live accord- 
ing to certain rules, but to find out how the great prin- 
ciples that Jesus gave mankind can be translated into 
character and conduct, individual and social. A new world 
has to be made. The one in which humanity is now living 
is intolerable to both our reason and our conscience. Who 
will dare to be a Christian? (Ward, The Gospel for a 
Working World, p. 223.) 


Here is its [the church’s] supreme task: not to draw 
up programs but to beget in men the sacrificial social- 
mindedness which God displays in Jesus Christ. (Shailer 
Mathews, The Spiritual Interpretation of History, p. 214.) 


Weary of dispute about the person of Christ, the world 
is now transferring its inquiry to his great message. Per- 
haps if we can comprehend the message we shall know the 
messenger. (Faunce, The New Horizon of State and 
Church, p. 29.) 


... We must find out who Jesus Christ is and what 
he wants done in this world; we must then make the 
venture of faith and go the whole length with him. If his 
teachings will not work, let us know it and no longer delude 
ourselves. But if they are the very wisdom of God, if they 
will work in the world and are the very power of God unto 
salvation, then let us joyfully confess him as our Lord and 
go whithersoever he leads. Do we really believe in Jesus 


36 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


Christ? Dare we be Christians? Do we believe that the 
meek shall inherit the earth and that love never faileth? 
Dare we forsake all other masters and measures and go as 
far as Jesus Christ goes? This is the acid test, the supreme 
challenge of our time. (Samuel Zane Batten, Why Not 
Try Christianity, in the Christian Century, Sept. 6, 1928, 
Dp. 1182)) 


The reader will recall that the positions of liberal 
writers on the three issues discussed—the Bible, theo- 
logical dogmas, and the historical Jesus—have been 
described in order that we might discover from them 
the educational purposes characteristic of the liberal 
movement. It is true that the liberal writers cited 
do not, for the most part, concern themselves 
with the educational objectives implied in their po- 
sitions. Objectives for the teaching of children 
and youth may, however, be inferred from the 
points of view that we have outlined. They will 
include: 

1. A knowledge of the outstanding and widely 
accepted facts about the Bible as they are revealed 
by Biblical research, with specific information on 
important and much discussed points in both the Old 
and the New Testament. 

2. A scientific attitude toward the Biblical records, 
toward nature, and toward the facts of Christian 
history. 

3. The discovery of the character of Jesus and the 
nature of his teaching through a free and realistic 
approach to his life. 

4. An acquaintance with the background that gave 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 37 


Christianity its setting, the surrounding cultures, and 
the history of the Christian movement. 

5. An evaluation, on the basis of the ethics of 
Jesus, of Biblical characters and incidents, religious 
ideas, and doctrinal statements. 

6. An appreciation of the teachings of Jesus and 
a conscious attempt to make them effective in meeting 
the problems of present social life. 

7. An effort to restate the “fundamentals” of 
Christianity in terms of ethical purpose and inclusive 
fellowship. 

If it represents the standpoints of liberal Chris- 
tianity, religious teaching will work toward the ac- 
complishment of these purposes. 


CHAPTER III 


Tue Distinctive Postrions oF LIBERAL CHRIS- 
TIANITY ANE THEIR IMPLIED EDUCATIONAL 
OBJECTIVES (continued) 


IV. Soctan WELFARE 


HowerverMucH the essential compassion of the 
Christian gospel may have been obscured by theolog- 
ical speculations, it is true that historic Christianity 
has always been associated with works of mercy and 
charity. These acts of kindness may have been in- 
discriminate, or unwise, or undertaken with the mo- 
tive of acquiring merit for the giver. They have 
often been bestowed only upon the faithful, or used 
as a bait to entice into the fold the unwary or the 
unwilling. But, to some degree, they have served to 
identify Christianity with unselfish social service. 

Because of their eager interest in the gospel ac- 
counts of the life of Jesus, liberals have discovered a 
fountain of fresh enthusiasm for the ministry of phys- 
ical and moral healing. They often recall to us the 
quotation from Isaiah with which, according to one 
of the accounts, Jesus began his public work:— 
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 


Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: 
38 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 39 


He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, 
And recovering of sight to the blind, 

To set at liberty them that are bruised, 

To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. 


and they seek to carry on this ministry to-day. They 
call to their aid the resources of science. Recognizing 
the interdependence of mental and physical life and 
the vital importance of environment, they are con- 
cerned with the whole of every man’s life. That 
he should be relieved from anything which interferes 
with his fullest possible development seems to them 
not secondary, not incidental, but a primary concern 
of religion. While the activities for social betterment 
are often undertaken by individuals and organizations 
not avowedly religious, liberal Protestants ascribe a 
truly Christian character to all such service and call 
upon Christian people intelligently and energetically 
to support measures for better health, better housing, 
sufficient recreation, fair wages and kindred items 
of social welfare. 


We are coming to realize, as our fathers did not, that 
the spiritual life of men is conditioned by such materialistic 
items as the housing which they can secure, the number of 
hours which they sleep, the character of the tasks at which 
they must work, the presence or absence of means of 
recreation, the amount and quality of their food, the nature 
of the contract between the employer and the employed, 
and countless other situations which need investigation by 
social experts. (G. B. Smith, Social Idealism and the New 
Theology, p. 125.) 


*St. Luke 4:18, 19. 


40 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


All too slowly does the truth lay hold upon the Church 
that our very personalities themselves are social products, 
that we are born out of society and live in it and are 
molded by it, that without society we should not be human 
at all, and that the influences which play upon our lives, 
whether redeeming or degrading, are socially mediated. A 
man who says that he believes in the ineffable value of 
human personalities and who professes to desire their 
transformation and yet who has no desire to give them 
better homes, better cities, better family relationships, 
better health, better economic resources, better recreations, 
better books and better schools, is either an ignoramus who 
does not see what these things mean in the growth of 
souls, or else an unconscious hypocrite who does not really 
care so much about the souls of men as he says he does. 
(Fosdick, Christianity and Progress, p. 100.) 


V. Tuer RECONSTRUCTION OF SOCIETY 


In the gospel of Jesus liberals discover something 
far more fundamental and searching than suggestions 
for social reform, important as these are.? Chal- 


2 Ellwood holds that Christianity has always been directed 
at a revolution in culture: “The distinctive note of Chris- 
tianity was ‘redemption’—not simply of the individual but 
of the world. For it looked to the establishment of a social 
order in which the divine will should be realized—a kingdom 
of God—an order which should make of humanity one large 
family with peace, justice, and good will among all its mem- 
bers. But this new social order was to be established not 
by force or by authority, but by a new life within the 
individual soul—a life redeemed from sin and in harmony 
with the divine will. Christianity was thus not so much a 
mere ‘reform’ movement in the external social order as a 
movement directed at a ‘revolution in culture,’ a complete 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 41 


lenged on the one hand by the all too apparent im- 
possibility of permanent amelioration while underly- 
ing conditions remain unchanged, and on the other 
hand by the Christian vision of a just and loving 
society, some liberals are demanding in Jesus’ name 
a radical transformation of the whole structure of 
our present civilization. Their utterances—many of 
them at any rate—ring with evangelistic fervor. With 
courage to condemn selfishness and aggression 
wherever they are found, they are calling upon the 
Christians of this generation to repent and to devote 
themselves to the creation of a society informed by 
the spirit of love. This, they declare, is the will of 
God, and.in this task they believe that one experiences 
fellowship with God. They insist that salvation of 
the individual and salvation of society can not be 
separated, that they belong together and condition 
each other. Thus the three evangelical virtues of 
faith, hope and love take on new and deeper 
significance. 
Of faith President McGiffert says: 


For democracy demands that we should believe not in 
great and good men merely, and not merely in the ordinary 
run of people, but in all people; that we shall have the 
confidence that they are able or will become able to govern 
themselves and to form a society where equal rights and 
opportunities and even-handed justice shall everywhere 


change in the ‘mores.’ From the first it was so recognized 
and fought by the champions and defenders of the older 
order in which it originated.” (Ellwood: The Reconstruction 
of Religion, p. 78.) 


42 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


obtain. It is the biggest faith history has to show. If it 
be not a religious faith, there never was such a thing; and 
if it do not need all the religion a man can muster, religion 
never was needed for anything. (A. C. McGiffert, Democ- 
racy and Religion in Religious Education, June, 1919, 
p. 158.) 


It is sometimes objected that ideals of social organ- 
ization are outside the sphere of Christianity which 
should concern itself solely with the spiritual life of 
individuals. To this liberals reply: 


Everywhere that the Christian minister turns, he finds 
his dearest ideals and hopes entangled in the economic life. 
Do you ask us then under these conditions to keep our 
hands off? In God’s name, you ask too much! (Fosdick, 
Christianty and Progress, p. 115.) 


There is, then, no standing-ground left for a narrowly 
individualistic Christianity. To talk of redeeming per- 
sonality while one is careless of the social environments 
which ruin personality; to talk of building Christ-like 
character while one is complacent about an economic system 
that is definitely organized about the idea of selfish profit; 
to praise Christian ideals while one is blind to the inevitable 
urgency with which they insist on getting themselves ex- 
pressed in social programs—all this is vanity. (Fosdick, 
ibid., p. 123.) 


Many writers proclaim the un-Christian character 
of our present society, and demand its transforma- 
tion: 

The concrete embodiment of Jesus’ principle of love, of 


course, is Brotherhood. This is revolutionary. It implies 
the transformation of the unbrotherly organization of 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 43 


society into new structures which shall embody the prin- 
ciple of universal love. 


In other words, our commercial, industrial, and political 
life remain largely unchristianized. They are almost as 
pagan as they were in Jesus’ day. We have only played 
with the application of His principles to society, and have 
yet to discover how revolutionary His ideas are. (Samuel 
Dickey, The Constructive Revolution of Jesus, pp. 148, 147.) 


Rauschenbusch may well be thought of as the 
great prophet of the new social order among liberal 
Protestants in America. He contrasts Christianity 
and Capitalism: 


Christianity teaches the unity and solidarity of men; 
Capitalism reduces that teaching to a harmless expression 
of sentiment by splitting society into two antagonistic 
sections, unlike in their work, their income, their pleasures, 
and their point of view. 

True Christianity wakens men to a sense of their worth, 
to love of freedom, and independence of action; Capitalism, 
based on the principle of autocracy, resists independence, 
suppresses the attempts of the working class to gain it, 
and deadens the awakening effect that goes out from 
Christianity. 


The most important advance in the knowledge of God 
that a modern man can make is to understand that the 
Father of Jesus Christ does not stand for the permanence 
of the capitalistic system. 

The most searching intensification that a man can ex- 
perience in his insight into sin and his consciousness of sin 
is to comprehend the sinfulness of our economic system 
and to realize his own responsibility for it. 


44 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


The largest evangelistic and missionary task of the 
Church and of the individual Christian is to awaken the 
nation to a conviction of that sinfulness and to a desire 
for salvation from it. (Rauschenbusch, Christianizing the 
Social Order, pp. 321, 322.) 


The following passage from a recent article in a 
religious magazine represents the same point of view: 


Even before the recent orgy of war-profiteering revealed 
its heart-sickening proportions, it was only necessary to 
read the daily news columns to realize that, from the stand- 
point of any worthy moral ideal, our capitalistic society 
stood daily self-condemned, and that “business versus 
society” would not be a completely exaggerated view of 
the social process in some of its most important economic 
aspects. (Clarence Marsh Case, The Dilemma of Social 
Religion, in The Journal of Religion, May, 1922, p. 284.) 


Professor Shailer Mathews discusses the relation 
of individual and social salvation and the patience 
and sacrifice which are needed. 


The gospel must socialize the spirit of Calvary. Society 
cannot be saved as it is. It, like the individual, must 
partake of the death of Christ. Love can not fully express 
itself while our social order permits selfishness to succeed. 
Many an institution and practice must be ended. Ob- 
viously such a putting off of the social “flesh” will not be 
without cost. ... One great mission of the Gospel is to 
educate men to let such loss come as sacrifice rather than 
as coerced surrender. Such an education cannot be 
accomplished over night. It presupposes slow growing social 
sympathy and wise counsels. But without it social progress 
will be by revolution rather than by that sacrificial unfold- 
ing of love which Jesus illustrated and to which he calls 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 45 


men. If such socializing of the spiritual impulses shall come 
to compel an extensive reorganization of society, that is 
only what is to be expected if every knee is to bow to 
Jesus Christ and the will of God is to be done on earth 
as it is in heaven. 

Yet even the prospect of a new social order is not to blind 
the Christian community to its unspectacular mission to 
the spiritual life of the individual. There may be regenerate 
men without their being a thoroughly regenerate society; 
but a regenerate society cannot be composed of unregenerate 
men. ... And it is the business of the church to see that 
such men are forthcoming; men of vision, of social sym- 
pathy, of consciences trained from childhood to see the 
moral obligations of corporations and labor unions, each 
ready to take up his cross and to teach society to take up 
its cross. Christians need to be taught the virility of such 
sacrificial life, for they are in danger of being feminized 
to the point of submission to a laissez faire optimism. So- 
ciety needs to be taught to share in the adventure of a love 
which chooses the spiritual in preference to the merely 
economic. A vicarious tenth must replace the submerged 
tenth. (Shailer Mathews, The Gospel and the Modern 
Man, pp. 317 and ff.) 


The goal and the process cannot be separated. So- 
cial reconstruction which has as its aim the estab- 
lishment of a Christian democracy must employ 
methods consistent with its aim. 


It must be clearly understood that the two fundamental 
demands of Christianity for reconstruction are absolutely 
interdependent. The spirit and the end of society belong 
together. Its organizing principle and its goal must har- 
monize. If society seeks possession, then it must have 
force to protect the possessor. If it seeks power, it must 


46 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


have armies as the tool of the aggressor. Autocracy must 
build its state around militarism and plutocracy must 
organize industry around its hired and armed guards to 
suppress the protesting or revolting workers. The natures 
of the militaristic state and of capitalistic industrialism are 
identical. They seek special power and privilege for the 
few, and that necessarily means the control of the many 
by the few. Mars and Mammon belong together. If we 
would overthrow one, the other also must be destroyed, for 
they are inseparably joined. Both of them are the relent- 
less, uncompromising foes of Christianity and of de- 
mocracy. (Harry F. Ward, The Christian Demand for 
Social Reconstruction, p. 49.) 


Sherwood Eddy, one of the leading missionary evan- 
gelists of this generation, recognizes the urgency of 
the same demand. 


The Church cannot forfeit its right of moral judgment 
in economic questions. 

On the issue of war, as a generation ago on the issue of 
slavery, on the moral issues of our industrial, social and 
political life, the church is at the parting of the ways. Will 
it take up its cross and follow its Master in a self-sacrificing 
life of redemptive love, or follow the discredited method of 
the autocracies of the old world in fighting for the status 
quo, without vision and without passion for social justice? 
(Sherwood Eddy, The Church at the Cross Roads, in the 
Christian Century, Dec. 29, 1921, p. 18.)° 


*See also an article by the same author, Putting Chris- 
tianity into Industry, in The Christian Century, March 9, 
1922, p. 298; and an article by Paul Jones in the issue for 
March 16, 1922, Can the Church Function with a Social 
Gospel, in which he urges Christians to make a thorough 
study of the principles of social and industrial relationships 
as the field in which the gospel is most needed today. 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 47 


This requires of liberals the colossal purpose of 
transforming our present social order—characterized 
by conflict, greed, and oppression—into something 
fundamentally different. This obviously would neces- 
sitate a fundamental re-direction of religious 
education. 


The modern church is concerned with life, with the life 
of our society. She prays for a new social order every 
time she utters the Lord’s Prayer. She prays for a new 
reign to begin, the reign or social organization of a Father. 
She seeks that humanity may be turned from its present 
order of the jungle, from the wolf-band ways to the ways 
of a family. She preaches, if she preaches the good news, 
the possibility of men practicing good-will, of a society 
which is so utterly unlike ours that it holds that a man’s 
life does not “consist in the abundance of things he 
possesses.” What could be more revolutionary? What 
could more definitely cut under the very foundations of 
our form of social living? (Cope: Organizing the Church 
School, pp. 15, 16.) 


“Social reconstruction” may be so interpreted as to 
include the entire purpose of religion. For the sake, 
however, of defining objectives with greater clear- 
ness, it is important to consider the various implica- 
tions of such a purpose as they relate to other issues 
significant for religious education. 


VI. Tue Po.utricaL STATE 


Liberal Protestants have no common political plat- 
form. They are found in all the various parties in the 
United States. They are alike, however,—many of 


48 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


them at least—in possessing certain general atti- 
tudes towards the political state, attitudes which 
are characteristically revealed in the following po- 
sitions. 

1. In general, they affirm the desirability and the 
possibility of operating the political unit, whether large 
or small, upon the humanitarian principles of Jesus— 
with (a) the absence of economic strife, (b) no race or 
class privilege, (c) participation in government of 
all those not physically or mentally incompetent, and 
(d) the ruling motive of aggression replaced by that 
of mutual service. 

These characteristics of the ideal state are illus- 
trated by quotations under other topics treated in this 
chapter. 

2. Many liberals recognize the value to the gov- 
ernment of constructive criticism, and they maintain 
that such criticism, from a Christian standpoint, is 
one of the essential functions of the church. 


There is hardly anything more needed now in the inter- 
national situation than a multitude of people who will sit in 
radical judgment on the actions of their governments, so 
that when the governments of the world begin to talk war 
they will know that surely they must face a mass of people 
rising up to say: War? Why war? We are no longer dumb 
beasts to be led to slaughter; we no longer think that any 
state on earth is God Almighty. (Fosdick, Christianity and 
Progress, p. 186.) 


The church in America has a unique mission to 
perform. No other agency—certainly not the state- 
administered school system—has such an opportunity 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 49 


to educate the youth of the country in ethical dis- , 
crimination on political issues. 


There is at least one necessary objective in the training 
of citizens that the state schools are certainly not in a 
position to pursue vigorously. I mean the development of 
free judgment upon the state itself. 

... Therefore, to the question, What specific contribu- 
tion to training for citizenship have we a right to expect 
from religious education? the answer is: This above all— 
Habituating the young to judge all social relations, processes, 
and institutions, the state included, from the standpoint 
of the command, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” 
(Coe, Religious Education and Political Conscience, in 
Religious Education, Dec., 1922, pp. 431, 485.) 


3. Considerable impatience exists with the limita- 
tions imposed upon good will by the policies of a 
narrow nationalism. 


The curse of nationalism is that, having pooled the 
unselfishness of persons in one group under one national 
name and of persons in another group under another 
national name, it uses this beautiful unselfishness of 
patriotism to carry out national enterprises that are funda- 
mentally selfish. One element, therefore, is indispensable 
in any solution: enough Christians, whether they call them- 
selves by that name or not, who have caught Jesus’ point 
of view that only one loyalty on earth is absolute—the 
will of God for all mankind. (Fosdick, Christianity and 
Progress, pp. 184, 185.) 


We are surely approaching a time when patriotism is 
not to be interpreted as implying a persistent attitude of 
suspicion, distrust, and hatred toward other nations. (King, 
The Moral and Religious Challenge of Our Time, p. 173.) 


50 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


As Christians we cannot admit the nationalist’s contention 
that the nation is the final unit, and that no humanitarian 
considerations should be allowed to stand in the way of 


national interest. (Brown, Js Christianity Practicable? 
p. 158.) 


He [the Modernist] is convinced that the evangelization 
of the world must be preceded by the casting down of the 
idol of nationalism, in order that the ideal of brotherhood 


may dominate. (Leighton Parks, What Is Modernism? 
p. 148.) 


There are indeed in current nationalism certain tendencies 
which Christianity cannot promote or countenance. Fore- 
most among these is the spirit of national conceit. (Faunce, 
The New Horizon of State and Church, p. 64.) 


4, Liberals are concerned that democracy in this 
country should be truly representative. Their activ- 
ities for social welfare contribute to this end. They 
desire in particular that women shall have a larger 
function in the direction of the processes of govern- 
ment. One of the resolutions adopted at the Cleve- 
land Convention of the Federal Council of Churches 
contains the following clause: 


We recognize that women played no small part in the 
winning of the war. We believe that they should have 
full political and economic equality with equal pay for 
equal work, and a maximum eight hour day. (Quoted by 
Coe Hayne, in For a New America, p. 144.) 


Some liberals are also questioning whether children 
cannot take a recognized and constructive part in 
democratic social organization. Professor Coe says: 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 51 


The experience of a legal status, defined in the child’s 
own mind, and involving both rights that he can have 
enforced and duties that cannot be evaded—this essential 
experience of democratic discipline is nowhere provided. 
(George A. Coe, The Nature of Discipline for a Democracy, 
in Religious Education, June, 1919, p. 140.) 


and he suggests that “the grant of full franchise as a 
citizen of the state and of the United States should 
be conditioned upon success” in a graded experience 
and practice of democracy which should include even 
for young children the making and enforcing of laws. 

5. The newer books on home missions discuss the 
practical implications of making America Christian 
in terms not only of individual piety but of com- 
munity-wide and nation-wide movements for social 
reform: 


The whole task is to make the United States, as a nation, 
and the people, as individuals, Christians. (Coe Hayne, 
For a New America, p. xvi.) 


We shall at least have made a good beginning in building 
a better America when we have stopped unnecessary dis- 
ease; supplied good schools for all our children; provided 
thoroughgoing religious training for them; made wise and 
adequate provision for the use of constantly increasing 
leisure time; developed a sense of social responsibility 
which finds its clearest interpretation in terms of Christian 
stewardship; substituted justice, tolerance and _ broad 
sympathies for injustice, intolerance and prejudice; and 


*For further discussion on this point see the entire article 
to which reference has been made and another article by 
Professor Coe, The Functions of Children in the Community, 
Religious Education, Vol. xii (1918), pp. 26-32. 


52 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


created a true sense of world fellowship with all peoples 
under the sun. These are some things to start with, at 
least. (Jay Stowell, The Child and America’s Future, 
pp. 171-2.) 


VII. INTERNATIONAL AND INTER-RAcIAL PROBLEMS 


Nowhere is the change of emphasis characteristic 
of Protestant liberals in America more obvious than 
in their attitude toward other races and nations. 

1. The purposes of the great missionary enterprises 
are being transformed. 

a. Liberal Christian missionaries no longer seek ut- 
terly to discredit and destroy non-Christian faiths. 


Moreover the application of the scientific spirit to the 
study of the non-Christian religions of to-day is leading to 
a new valuation of these. . . . At any rate, it is no longer 
respectable among scholars to seek to show the utter de- 
pravity of pagan nations as a step in the process of proving 
the perfection of Christianity. (G. B. Smith, Social Ideal- 
ism and the Changing Theology, p. 96.) 


Our concern should be not to break down and destroy, 
not to displace other faiths by the Christian faith and 
other civilizations by our Western civilization, but to build 
up in cooperation with those of other faiths and other 
civilizations a better world, more genuinely religious and 
more completely civilized than anything we yet know. 
(A. C. McGiffert, The Church and World ellowship, in 
Religious Education for June, 1921, p. 133.) 


b. They seek, on the other hand, to appreciate the 
contributions of the cultures of other countries, and 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 53 


to replace the spirit of benevolent philanthropy with 
a spirit of reciprocity—of mutual give and take. 


If we are ever to work with India for a better world, 
there must be a development of mutual appreciation and 
respect. Pity and compassion may go forth to those whom 
we do not respect, but if we are to enter into Christian 
cooperation with another people, there must be admiration 
for what is worthy in them. We must think of them not 
only as recipients of help, but as contributors of a rich 
store of customs and habits all their own. (Daniel J. 
Fleming, Building with India, p. 27.) 


c. Movements for social reform and for social re- 
construction are beginning to be recognized as a legiti- 
mate part of the missionary program. 

In his recent book on Japan, Mr. Galen Fisher em- 
phasizes the importance of Christian social service: 


Many other examples of the leadership of Christians in 
social enterprises could be given. To a practical people 
like the Japanese, who judge a religion chiefly by its fruits, 
these enterprises are more convincing than volumes of 
apologetics. . . . For generations the common people have 
associated religion with the shaven-headed Buddhist priests, 
who drone Sanskrit liturgies and officiate at funerals, while 
they give the multitudes sweating under the yoke of life 
exhortations on the unreality of evil and the compensations 
of a paradise hereafter. A learned comparison between 
Buddhism and Christianity is beyond their grasp, but a 
religion that incarnates itself in self-sacrificing service and 
that stoops in the spirit of Christ unto the very least of 
the drudges in mines and factories, and the unfortunates 
in the slums, will command their respect. (Galen Fisher, 
Creative Forces in Japan, p. 100.) 


54 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


The Peking social survey is well known. It has con- 
tributed to the interest in social questions taken by 
Chinese Christians. At the meeting of the National 
Christian Council at Shanghai in 1922, a strong plea 
was made for resisting, in the name of Jesus, the in- 
justices of a rapidly growing industrialism. 


What is the Church doing to help the industrial workers 
adjust themselves to the tremendous change that the mod- 
ern industrial system brings? 

Must the tragic and humiliating history of the West be 
repeated here? (Agatha Harrison, in Report of the Na- 
tional Christian Conference, Shanghai, China, May, 1922, 
p. 463.) 


Mr. Paul Hutchinson, doubtless representative of a 
number of missionaries of the younger generation, de- 
mands that the missionary forces of the churches 
should consciously recognize as their supreme task 
the creation of a new society, international in scope 
and Christian in spirit. In an article in the Atlantic 
Monthly, he says in part: 


This is the sort of international sin that most grievously 
besets the future—political injustice, economic exploitation, 
racial discrimination, material standards of success. Chris- 
tian missions, if they mean to make the world truly 
Christian, must deal with this. To deal with these sins 
will require an entire change of missionary method... . 

This readjustment to a new campaign is not a minor 
matter. For either the churches of the West will make the 
readjustment, and find themselves once more engaged upon 
an adventure of vigor and significance, or their bid for a 
place among the world’s moulding forces will end in a 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 59 


formal sterility. (Paul Hutchinson, Christian Missions, in 
the Atlantic Monthly, Sept., 1923, p. 389.) 


d. It is agreed that foreign direction of missionary 
affairs should be withdrawn as speedily as possible 
and that the nationals of the various “mission fields” 
should be expected to assume increasingly the control 
of the Christian organizations in their communities. 

A secretary of one of the leading mission boards 
writes: 


It becomes ever more evident that the Christian Church 
is the fundamental institution in the missionary enterprise, 
and that the establishment of a real Church with its own 
life and government, unsubsidized and undirected, but 
standing on its own feet and codperating with us or making 
a place for us to cooperate with it, should be the normative 
principle of missionary policy. (Robert E. Speer, The 
Gospel and the New World, p. 285.) 


From China comes this message: 


I would humbly suggest that in so far as the Chinese 
church exists, the organized missions of Western churches 
in this country have no ecclesiastical status whatever, except 
by the courtesy of that Church; and I think that the time 
has come, or is soon coming, when it must be clearly rec- 
ognized that, in so far as the churches of Europe and 
America continue operations here in China, it ought to be 
only by the consent, and at the invitation of, the Chinese 
Church. (R. K. Evans, The Church of Christ in China, in 
Report of the National Christian Conference, Shanghai, 
May, 1922, p. 229.) 


The same point of view is expressed by a missionary 
in India: 


56 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


In the last resort this transfer of control involves to that 
extent the voice of Indians in the appointment and even 
more in the removal of foreign missionaries. . . . For there 
is no victory in our work to be compared to the native 
church that can stand up to us and look us in the face and 
make terms with us as sovereign in her own house. (Frank 
Lenwood, The Effect of Modern Development on Mission 
Policy, in the International Review of Missions, October, 
1923, pp. 524, 525.) 


2. While liberal writers do not identify themselves 
to any great extent with theoretical pacifism, recent 
writings of some representative liberals reveal a pas- 
sionate determination to abolish war as a means of 
settling disputes between nations. 


We want a change of mental attitude toward this whole 
matter of peace and war so fundamental and revolutionary 
as to require a complete reconstruction of the principles 
upon which the relations between nations have hitherto 
rested. (Brown, Is Christianity Practicable? p. 99.) 


The most amazing thing in modern ethical discussion is 
that intelligent men are still found who honestly believe 
that among nations the brute’s way of settling a quarrel 
is the only way and that the law of the jungle is the most 
fundamental law of international life. (Faunce, The New 
Horizon in Church and State, p. 65.) 


To-day we must make unmistakably clear our position 
against war, against competitive preparation for war, 
against reliance on war. We must make clear our certain 
conviction that, save for our corporate senselessness, war 
in the modern world is as needless as it is suicidal, that 
only the folly and selfishness of diplomats and the stupid 
willingness of the people to be led like beasts to the 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 57 


shambles, make it seem necessary. Against foolish chauvin- 
ism, competitive armaments, secret diplomacy, imperialistic 
experiments, against endeavors to play lone hands when, 
by cooperation, international agencies could be set up to 
solve the problems which war never solves but only makes 
the worse, we must now lift our protest and launch our 
crusade. (Fosdick, in his Introduction to War, by Kirby 
Page, p. xx.) 


The last war may have been the lesser of two evils; the 
next war will be suicide. If we believe this, let us begin 
at once to educate statesmen, newspapers, and the clergy. 
The next war must be boycotted by the Church of Christ. 
(William Austin Smith, War and the Churches, pamphlet, 
p. 14.) 


3. They believe that the religion of Jesus calls for 
an expression in international organization of a 
world-wide loyalty. 


But to make the economic organization a means for the 
increase of fraternity requires that it be shaped around 
certain concepts and ideals. It requires the general recog- 
nition of the equality of need and right of all mankind, and 
the universal acceptance of the obligation of service. It 
demands adherence to the truth, “above all nations is 
humanity,” and the development of supreme loyalty to the 
worldwide human family above all loyalties to class or 
nation or race. (Ward, The New Social Order, p. 381.) 


The Church has something to say about this conflict of 
patriotisms. It has a loyalty to offer which makes place 
for all the lesser loyalties of race and class and nation. It 
opens a horizon which carries us beyond the confines of 
our country and requires us to envisage the world as a 
whole. (W. A. Brown, The Church in America, p. 45) 


58 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


The Christian statesman who moves for humanization 
of international relationships may be advancing into new 
territory, but he may well remember that his religion has 
from the beginning called for just such statesmanship. 
(Francis J. McConnell, Democratic Christianity, p. 59) 


4. A growing number of Protestant liberals are op- 
posed to discrimination in the United States on the 
ground of race, color, or religion; and they oppose 
as un-Christian factional organizations which stir up 
suspicion and prejudice. The following sentences are 
from an article on the Ku Klux Klan which appeared 
recently in one of the leading church papers: 


The fact must be borne in mind that our lives, in Amer- 
ica, have become so firmly intermeshed, that a real, per- 
manent hatred on the part of one group toward another 
would be very difficult to sustain. We all live by faith in 
one another, here. ... This is the sort of faith that is 
threaded through our whole American life. We must not 
let that faith break down! It is no mere adornment! It 
is the only guarantee we have of the perpetuity of our 
nation! It is just that serious! Well; how are we to 
have faith in one another without mutual confidence and 
trust? And does mutual trust thrive on hate? 

Preachers are asking one another, these days, “What 
are you doing about it?” Many are maintaining a digni- 
fied silence because they know there are klansmen in the 
congregation. They do not care to. become embroiled in 
a racket. It is quite fortunate for us that Jesus Christ 
was not so sensitive to the discomforts of a racket. 

The question for us to decide is not: What will it do to 
me, personally, if I do my bit toward discrediting this 
thing? The question is: Am I for, or against, a program 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 59 


of organized hate? If I am against it, and keep silence 
for policy’s sake, may God have mercy on my soul! 
(Lloyd C. Douglas, The Patriotism of Hatred, in the 
Christian Century, Oct. 25, 1923, pp. 1373-1374.) . 


VIII. Human Nature 


Psychological investigations of the make-up of 
human nature are vitally important for the Christian 
religion, with its characteristic concern for the trans- 
formation of ordinary human beings into citizens of a 
heavenly kingdom. In general, however, liberal Prot- 
estants seem to be less alive than one should expect 
to scientific researches in this field. Recognition of 
their importance is confined, for the most part, to 
liberals who are writing definitely on problems of 
religious education or the psychology of religion. 

The discoveries which they mention include: (1) 
the inherently social character of personality; (2) the 
extent and the limits of the educability of human 
nature—educability, that is, in the sense that human 
nature is modified by experience; (38) the importance 
of individual differences—their nature, extent, and 
significance for learning; (4) the effect of age and 
growth upon ability and interests.5 All these must 
be considered in formulating objectives for religious 
education which are adapted to the needs of children 


* While it is not within the province of this report to quote 
from writers outside the field of Protestant religious educa- 
tion, it should be recognized that the conclusions referred 
to here rest in considerable measure upon the researches of 
such men as Baldwin, Cooley, Thorndike, MacDougall, etc. 


60 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


and youth. They suggest the importance of phrasing 
general objectives not in static terms but in terms of 
social progress or growth. They also suggest the de- 
sirability of proposing subsidiary aims related to more 
general aims but adapted to the needs of 
special individuals and groups, and to special circum- 
stances. 

The following quotations illustrate these four points: 

1. On the social character of personality.® 


We now think of human nature in terms of the relations 
of persons to one another and of their behavior within 
these relations, including not only what they do with 
their hands, and feet, but what they do with their minds. 
We are interested not merely in the fact that groups exist, 
but in the way the minds of the members of groups inter- 
penetrate and in the way the groups under consideration 
are related to one another and to other groups. 

Human nature, then, is what human nature does—under 
certain conditions, namely, when it is in socially function- 
ing relations. (Hugh Hartshorne, What is Human Nature, 
in Religious Education, Feb., 1923, p. 17.) 


and 

Society is able to have this enormous influence upon 
the individual because it not only instructs him but to 
some extent genuinely constitutes him. ... In short each 


one of us is what he is in virtue of his relations to his 
fellows. His place in the social network is a genuine part 


®°This is the psychological justification for the insistence of 
liberalism that personal salvation is possible only in a re- 
deemed society—that the individual and social aspects of all 
life are bound together. 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 61 


of him. (James B. Pratt, The Religious Consciousness, 
DDw 10,6 42) 


2. On the educability of human nature— 


In the first place, modern sociological research has shown 
almost beyond the shadow of a doubt the plasticity or 
modifiability of human nature in social life. Much of the 
incubus of doubt which has rested upon the program of 
ethical religion in the past has been due to the supposi- 
tion that human nature was unmodifiable; but the studies 
among all the peoples of the world of anthropologists and 
sociologists show human nature to be one of the most 
modifiable things we know. We are almost justified in 
drawing the conclusion that it may be indefinitely modified 
by social traditions, social institutions, and the social en- 
vironment. (Charles A. Ellwood, Christianity and Social 
Science, p. 18) 


and 


Original equipment provides for changing itself in the 
direction indicated by satisfactions that come from the 
operation of this equipment in a human environment... . 
Original nature thus provides for its own development, 
for its own evolution. (Hugh Hartshorne, Childhood and 
Character, p. 155) 


3. On individual differences— 


To sum up then. Find out all you can about each 
child’s parents, grandparents, size of family, home-life, 
neighborhood influences, previous physical conditions, any 
peculiarities, in order that you may know better why he 
acts as he does, and make allowances for him accordingly. 
It is absolutely false that all are born equal either phys- 
ically, mentally or socially; and we must take into account 


62 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


just what capital a child has to start out with. Of him 
who has little, less may be expected; to whom much is 
given, of him more must be required. (Mary T. Whitley, 
A Study of the Little Child, p. 21) 


4. On the effect of age and growth on ability and 
interests— 


Personality grows naturally. You cannot build it within 
a pupil by mechanically cementing ideas one upon the 
other, as though they were bricks. The youngest child in 
your class already has a personality of his own—living, 
growing, maturing. And, like every other living thing, 
it has its laws of life and growth and development. Just 
as the body develops in accordance with the laws of its 
nature, so the mind develops from the blank of babyhood 
to the self-reliant personality of complete manhood in 
accordance with definite laws which by nature belong to it. 
If you are going to help a child become the right sort 
of a person, you must understand these laws, just as truly 
as the gardener must understand and use the natural laws 
of plant development. (Luther A. Weigle, The Pupil, p. 6) 


Moreover, as the child grows in years, new possi- 
bilities of action appear through the ripening of new 
capacities. The adolescent’s actions, eg., are capable of 
very great enlargement through the ripening of the sex 
function and the tremendous growth in body and nerve 
structure that go along with it. (Joseph M. Artman, 
Expressional Activities in the Light of Current Psychology, 
in Religious Education, Feb., 1918, p. 13.) 


IX. Tur EpucatTiIonaL Process 


Liberalism in religion is allying itself with pro- 
gressive movements in education. Both are products 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 63 


of this age, and it is impossible to overlook their con- 
geniality of spirit. For the purpose of this study it 
is not necessary to make a survey of modern educa- 
tional theory. It will be sufficient simply to state the 
points of emphasis of certain outstanding Protestant 
liberals—representative of important groups—when 
they refer to such issues in the theory of the educa- 
tional process as have a bearing upon aims for re- 
ligious education. 

1. Liberals emphasize the influence of environment 
on learning. To a varying degree, “environment” is 
understood to include imaginative elements present, 
the persons in the group, and the total “set” of the 
learner, as well as the material surroundings. 


The whole philosophy of modern education is based upon 
the principle that to bring about an inner change in the 
individual you must change his environment. (Kierstead, 
The Leadership of the Ministry, in The Journal of Religion, 
January, 1922, p. 50.) 


Environment provides the stimuli which free the capaci- 
ties into expression... . 

As stimulus for reaction environment is not to be thought 
of merely as an object or thing. Nearly all objects or 
things with which one comes in contact are colored or 
evaluated by the way other folks act toward or with 
these material things. Thus, the stimuli for the growing 
child or youth are more often social ways of doing which 
are organized around the physical objects... . 

Education enters only when society scientifically manip- 
ulates environment as a stimulus. (Joseph A. Artman, 
Expressional Activities in the Light of Current Psychology, 
in Religious Education, Feb., 1918, pp. 10, 12.) 


64 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


The aims of religious education must then include 
provision for a controlled social environment. 


2. The primary importance of focussing atten- 
tion on present rather than future experience is 
recognized. 


The whole trend of modern educational theory is to 
emphasize the child’s characteristics and abilities, to adapt 
the school to his present needs, rather than to try to fit 
him to a hard-and-fast, traditional curriculum based on 
certain things that we believe he will need to know later 
as an adult. We say nowadays that education means, not 
filling a child’s mind with supposedly necessary external 
material, but developing the child in every way, phys- 
ically, mentally, morally and socially, for fuller present 
life, because we believe that out of present development 
will come enrichment of life in the future. (John H. Fin- 
ley, The Debt Eternal, pp. 168, 169) 


Again, the scientific study of religion is making clear the 
experimental basis of our faith in God. We see that the 
arguments we give to justify our belief are arguments 
after the fact. We must find God in our experience before 
we can reason about him. (Brown, The Church in Amer- 
ica, p. 147) 


Of neglecting to give attention to factors actually 
existing in the present social experience of young 
children, Professor Coe says: 


But let us not deceive ourselves. While we thus sleep 
the enemy sows tares. From infancy the pupil is in con- 
tact with the social order as it is; through this contact he 
is forming habits, and not only habits, but also the pre- 
suppositions of his thinking with respect to men and so- 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 65 


ciety. ... Shall we forever go on making the foolish 
assumption that the will of the child remains neutral for 
years and years with regard to the contest between justice 
and injustice? Shall we go on postponing in education 
what is not and cannot be postponed in the child’s social 
experience? (George A. Coe, A Social Theory of Religious 
Education, pp. 60, 61) 


The aims of religious education must then concern 
themselves with issues alive in the present social en- 
vironment of children. 


3. Insistence on pupil activity has become a com- 
monplace in the educational methods advocated by all 
forward-looking Protestant leaders. ‘The important 
point to note in this regard is that imterest in such 
educational devices as meaningless games and “busy 
work” is giving place to the promotion of enterprises 
of genuine worth, socially conducted, and evaluated by 
ethical standards. 


Here is the central principle upon which the educational 
work of the church is based: persons learn by doing; they 
learn social living by actively sharing in the life of social 
groups; they can learn the social life of Christian love only 
by sharing the life of a society that loves and by finding 
in it the opportunity actively to share in loving. (H. F. 
Cope, Orgamzing the Church School, p. 32) 


Our chief work as teachers of religion is to develop 
wholesome religious activity. . 

Whatever phases of Moire life we emphasize in class, 
it is essential to remember that the universal method of 
learning is in and through activity, both physical and 
mental, and that the younger the pupils are the more 
closely must learning be associated with muscular activity 


wed 


66 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


at the moment of learning. (Hugh Hartshorne, Childhood 
and Character, p. 160) 


Sound method in moral education, then, will cause chil- 
dren to face, directly and analytically, their relations to 
one another, to their teachers, and to the larger society. 
It will not build up a structure of moral ideas apart from 
moral action, nor will it be content, on the other hand, with 
conduct, however appropriate, that does not grow into 
reflective self-control and weighing of standards. Just as 
the best teaching of arithmetic, or of manual processes, or 
of physics causes the child to realize what he is doing, why 
he does it, what the results are, and how it can be im- 
proved, so in morals it is open-eyed, forward-looking, and 
in this case self-conscious practice that counts most for 
the formation of a democratic character. (George A. Coe, 
A Social Theory of Religious Education, p. 194) 


Everyone is most interested in that in which he has 
an active part. The meeting in which we presided or made 
a speech or presented a report is to us a more interesting 
meeting than one in which we were a silent auditor. To 
the child, personal response is even more necessary. No 
small part of the reason why the child “learns by doing” 
is that he is interested in doing as he is not interested in 
mere listening. (George H. Betts, How to Teach Re- 
ligion, pp. 153-4) 


Other attempts to vitalize the schools are in methods of 
teaching. ‘The underlying principle of them is that the 
child’s interest must be secured, that he learns best what 
and when he wants to learn, and that he learns best by 
active participation, rather than by passive absorption. 
The methods run all the way from the use of plays and 
games to awake interest to the “project method” which 
sets forth a definite task or problem, in the choice of which 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 67 


the children have a part, and which they work out them- 
selves under guidance and supervision. (J. H. Finley, The 
Debt Eternal, pp. 172-3) 


The aims of religious education must then provide 
for social activities on a Christian level and for reflec- 
dion upon these activities. 


4. The school of religion, like the secular school, 
must be integrally related to the larger life of the 
society of which the school is a part. Experience 
within the school, to be adequately educative, must 
be continuous with life outside. 


We must make the life of the class one with the life 
of the community, establish areas of codperation, make 
this our chief work, building our instruction upon the 
pupils’ immediate experience of social problems. (Hugh 
Hartshorne, Childhood and Character, p. 165) 


It now becomes evident that if the basal process in 
education is social interaction, the ancient isolation of 
school experience from other experience must be overcome 
all along the line. (George A. Coe, A Social Theory of 
Religious Education, p. 21.) 


We have passed from the pigeon-hole school. We have 
the much larger task of organizing class work extending 
into the week, group activities, worship and play, all inte- 
grated into the total, normal week-around experiences of 
children. Instead of scheming a Sunday-single-session 
school, we now seek to organize programs of religious edu- 
cation. (Cope, Organizing the Church School, p. 25.) 


The aims of religious education must then provide 
for continuity of social experience, 


68 | LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


5. The attitude of research is emphasized—the 
patient searching for facts and the habit of forming 
an opinion only after sufficient evidence is secured. 


This is our most serious need. We have made many 
mistakes by divided counsels, but we have made more 
mistakes by attempts to work in ignorance of the facts. 
(H. F. Cope, Principles of Christian Service, p. 99) 


When religious education acquires the purpose of taking 
a definite part in the evolution of society as a whole, and 
when, in order to fulfill this purpose, we undertake to lift 
the teaching of religion from the plane of traditional rou- 
tine to that of a scientifically controlled process, we obli- 
gate ourselves to cosmopolitanism of intellect as well as 
of heart. To make it effective, we must go on to assume 
the university attitude of freedom, of scientific method, 
of eagerness for new knowledge and for the widest organ- 
ization of knowledge. (Coe, Social Theory of Religious 
Education, p. 290) 


The aims of religious education must then empha- 
size the value of research and must themselves de- 
pend upon a scientific study of facts. 


X. Tur Cuurcu 


Tue outstanding requirements of liberal religion 
upon the social institution which expresses its life 
have been set forth in the preceding sections. The 
church is to be a fellowship of persons committed 
to the general Christian purpose rather than to a 
formula of beliefs. The liberal expects that through 
experience and instruction this Christian attitude will 
develop into the insights and purposes already de- 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 69 


scribed with respect to the Bible, theology, Jesus, 
social welfare, the reconstruction of society, the polli- 
tical state, international and inter-racial problems, 
human nature, and education. A comprehensive 
statement of the church’s responsibility along all 
these lines could hardly be expected from a single 
source; when liberal writers emphasize certain issues, 
they quite naturally maintain that there—within the 
areas of those particular issues—lies the supreme duty 
of the church. 

Mention should be made, however, of certain char- 
acteristic attitudes toward the church found more 
or less generally in the writings of Protestant liberals. 

1. The church is criticized. Liberals, themselves 
church members, seek to evaluate the institution on 
a Christian basis. Many of them are surprisingly out- 
spoken in their confession of defects. ‘The Modernist 
is convinced,” says Dr. Parks, that “unless the Church 
can be revivified by a blood infusion, it will die of per- 
nicious anemia.” (What rs Liberalism? p. 144.) 

Lyman Abbott contrasts different standards and 
practices within the church. 


It is true that the prosperity and progress of the Church 
has been its peril. While it has been pushing its influence 
out into the world, the world has been pushing its influ- 
ence into the Church. Deeds of avarice and cruelty have 
been strangely interwoven in the fabric of its history with 
deeds of unselfish devotion and self-sacrificing love. It 
has been both narrow-minded and large-hearted; both di- 
vided into petty sects quarreling over forms of words and 
united in worldwide service by love for its Master. When- 


70 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


ever it has lost that love; whenever it has substituted an 
admiration of beauty for a reverence of goodness, emotional 
enjoyment for self-denying service, regulation of conduct 
for inspiration of the spirit, belief in a creed for faith in 
a Person, whatever its wealth, its political power, its pres- 
tige, whatever the beauty of its services, the regularity of 
its order, or the soundness of its theology, it has ceased 
to be a living church, and has had pronounced against it 
the condemnation uttered nineteen centuries ago against 
its prototype: “Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased 
with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not 
that thou are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, 
and naked.” (Lyman Abbott: What Christianity Means 
to Me, p. 45) 


According to another writer, the church of the 
present day is, to some extent at least, stifling the 
spirit of free inquiry. 


Here we touch on what is perhaps the Church’s greatest 
sin—the sin of encouraging the closed mind instead of 
urging open-mindedness and the critical spirit. Men have 
been asked to believe thus and so simply because such was 
the inherited teaching of the Church. ‘This is putting 
shackles on the mind. In so far as the Church has en- 
couraged people to give their assent, without searching 
inquiry, to doctrines whose truth is sincerely questioned 
by any considerable number of intelligent men, she has 
done a grave disservice to our democracy. But not only 
has she taught questionable opinions as certain, she has 
attempted to imoculate her members with such an as- 
surance in regard to them that they shall be immune to 
opposing arguments. By emotional influences she has 
stifled the murmurings of the intellect. The result is that 
the whole course of modern thought has been confused, 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 71 


and few, if any, modern philosophers have attained to the 
intellectual clarity of the Greeks, The fact that a man 
belongs to a church is widely taken to show that he has 
an uncritical mind. (Durant Drake: Shall We Stand By 
the Church? p. 12) 


2. Liberals welcome, and indeed seek to promote, 
fellowship among denominational groups. They stress 
the inclusive character of Christian fellowship. They 
rebel against barriers erected in the interests of eccle- 
siastical orthodoxy. A few references will illustrate 
this tendency: 


What is going on in industry, in politics, and in education 
is going on also mm the Church. In many different ways 
the different Christian bodies, dissatisfied with their pres- 
ent divisions, are working out forms appropriate to demo- 
cratic religion. In the local community, in the missionary 
and educational work of the Churches, between the differ- 
ent denominations as a whole, various forms of union are 
being devised. Community Churches are being formed, 
Federations of Churches are being set up, nationwide 
Federal Councils are being established. Plans are being 
made for extensive cooperation in the field of religious 
education. What the end is to be, we cannot yet foresee. 
But we shall fail to read the signs of the times if we do 
not perceive that in these new experiments the democratic 
Church of the future is feeling its way to a more complete 
and adequate self-expression. (William Adams Brown: 
Imperialistic Religion and the Religion of Democracy, 
pp. 176, 177.) 


When a class like organized labor seems to think that 
the Church does not in any sense belong to it, the Church 
should give itself no rest in the search for a message or 


72 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


a policy that shall make unmistakably clear that the 
Church belongs to all men. (F. J. McConnell: Democratic 
Christianity, p. 21) 


Ecclesiasticism is defined by the Century Dictionary as 
“devotion to the interests of the Church and extension of 
its influence in its external relations.” JI did not find in 
the life and teachings of Jesus Christ any devotion to the 
interests of the Church. (Lyman Abbott: What Chris- 
tianity Means to Me, p. 18.) 


We have outlived the day of individualism and also that 
of orthodoxy. I believe few of us realize how completely 
the old orthodoxy fails to appeal to the modern Christian. 
(Foakes Jackson: Some Different Aspects of the Church, 
p. 25) 


3. It is essential to the liberal position that the 
Church should be thought of as progressive, as looking 
to the future, as experimental and creative. 

To quote two of the writers already mentioned: 


The members of this developing church will never re- 
gard their work as finished. They will always be trying . 
new experiments. They will be continually comparing 
experiences in the hope of finding some better way. Con- 
scious of serving the living God, their faces will be turned 
to the future; they will set no limits to their expectation. 
(William Adams Brown: Imperialistic Religion and the 
Religion of Democracy, p. 178) 


What a travesty it is to speak of the Church as a brake- 
system on the fast-moving life of our time! Brakes we no 
doubt need, but the Church of God is not to be forever 
pictured as stopping things or as holding them back. The 
Church enthrones and worships a Creator. How better 


THE DISTINCTIVE POSITIONS 73 


to worship a Creator than by showing a creative spirit. 
(F. J. McConnell: Democratic Christianity, p. 35) 


The aspects of the liberal movement noted in this 
chapter—involving as they do standards of method, 
items of knowledge, and individual and social atti- 
tudes—carry with them numerous educational ob- 
jectives. While these objectives have been implied 
in the foregoing analysis, it remains necessary to state 
them in such a way that they may serve as standards 
for the religious education of children and youth in 
the issues here mentioned. They are not special or 
final ends but directions of effort that we may expect 
to find running through all educational activities char- 
acteristic of liberal Christianity. These objectives 
include: 

1. Knowledge of the facts of our present civilization 
—accurate information on living conditions, on social 
institutions including the church and the state, and 
on the make-up of human nature. 

2. The desire and the ability to relieve suffering 
and to work toward the reform of un-Christian social 
conditions. 

3. An evaluation, on a Christian basis, of the in- 
stitutions with which the groups under instruction 
come into contact, and active efforts for whatever re- 
constructions are found to be needed. 

4. Mutual appreciation and codperation between 
groups where there are racial, occupational, national 
or other differences; and the attempt to destroy “spe- 
cial privilege’ due to age, sex, race, wealth, etc. 

5. Activity in abolishing war as a means of set- 


74 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


tling disputes, and participation in efforts for reconcil- 
lation between individuals, classes, and nations. 

6. Active faith in humanity and in the gradual 
transformation of society into what is commonly called 
“the kingdom of God”. This is always taken to mean 
a brotherly society and usually involves the acceptance 
of a democratic ideal and experiments in democratic 
organization. 

7. Efforts to develop the Christian church as an 
effective agency for the reconstruction of society. 


CHAPTER IV 


OBJECTIVES AS DEFINED BY LEADING WRITERS IN 
RELiIcIous HpUCATION 


To what extent do the objectives as defined by 
writers in religious education express the positions of 
liberal Christianity? It is fair to suppose that prac- 
tice in religious education will be largely influenced 
by the aims advocated by leading writers on the sub- 
ject, and it is therefore important to ask how far 
their aims indicate agreement with the liberal positions 
already outlined and a tendency to present the recon- 
structive purposes inherent in the liberal movement. 
Among the leaders who have written extensively in 
recent years, six representative men have been chosen. 

Dr. Weigle, professor in Yale Divinity School, em- 
phasizes the point that religious education means 
more than imparting information and more than mere 
“training.” 

As a teacher you aim, then, to develop a personality. 
You want your pupil not simply to know, but to live 
Christianity. You want him not merely to do right deeds, 
but to do them of his own will. There is but one test of 
a teacher’s work. It is not “What have you taught your 
pupil to know?” or “What have you trained him to do?” 
but “What sort of a person have you helped him to be- 
come?” (Weigle, The Pupil, p. 5) 

75 


76 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


In a later book on worship he says: 


The goal at which we aim in training children to wor- 
ship is that we may help them to become men and women 
(1) of sound individual habits of devotion, (2) members 
of the Christian Church and regular participators in its 
worship, (3) who have committed their lives to God 
through Jesus Christ and have experienced his redeeming, 
regenerating grace, (4) whose worship issues in lives of 
Christlike service, doing God’s work in the world, (5) and 
who have begun so to know God through worship as to 
have entered, here and now, upon eternal life. (Weigle, 
Traimng the Devotional Life, p. 90) 


This aim is stated in general terms and lacks spe- 
cific direction. As stated, without further interpreta- 
tion, it suggests individual goodness through such 
means as doctrinal conformity, habits of worship, and 
the practice of social service. Dr. Weigle does not go 
on to explain how lives committed to God should be 
changed, nor what God’s work in the world actually 
involves. 

Professor Athearn of Boston University makes a 
strong plea for a religious education which shall pro- 
vide a continuity of social experience. He says: 


The task of religious education is to motivate conduct 
in terms of a religious ideal of life. The facts and the ex- 
periences of life must be interfused with religious mean- 
ing. In a democracy the common facts, attitudes and ideals 
given as a basis of common action must be surcharged with 
religious interpretation. Spiritual significance and God- 
consciousness must attach to the entire content of the 
secular curriculum. Unless the curriculum of the Church 


OBJECTIVES DEFINED 77 


school can pick up the curriculum of the public school and 
shoot it full of religious meaning, the Church cannot guar- 
antee that the conduct of the citizens of the future will 
be religiously motivated. (Walter Athearn, A National 
System of Religious Education, p. 30) 


He emphasizes the importance of the standards of 
Jesus and declares for a world brotherhood. 


The purpose of religious education is to indoctrinate the 
minds of all men with the standards, ideals and personal 
experiences of Jesus Christ in the interests of a perma- 
nent brotherhood of man. (Ibid., p. 25.) 


The characteristic notes of a world brotherhood are 
not indicated in Professor Athearn’s writings; nor are 
the standards and ideals of Jesus as they bear on 
questions of the day. He gives us no hints as to our 
objectives in teaching children about the church, the 
political state, traditional theology. His statement 
that “in some place’”—presumably the church school— 
“the Bible must be taught as religion as well as lit- 
erature and history” is not supplemented by any eluci- 
dation of what he means by the Bible as religion. 

In two recent books on religious education, Profes- 
sor Betts of Northwestern University goes into more 
detail in discussing objectives. In his definition of 
aim he emphasizes especially the possibility of a nor- 
mal continuous growth in religious experience. 


On the positive side, religious education takes the child, 
endowed through his original nature as he is with capaci- 
ties both for evil and good, and seeks to stimulate the 
good and suppress the bad, using for this purpose religious 


78 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


instruction, nurture, and guidance. (G. H. Betts, The New 
Program of Religious Education, p. 40) 


and 


We must ask what part our instruction is having in the 
making of Christians. We must measure all our success 
in terms of the child’s response to our efforts. We must 
realize that we have failed except as we have caused the 
child’s spiritual nature to unfold and his character to grow 
toward the Christ ideal. (Betts, How to Teach Religion, 
p. 39) 


Professor Betts would encourage discrimination in the 
use of Biblical material. He desires children to accept 
the ideals of Jesus. He, like Professor Athearn, rec- 
ognizes the continuity of religion with life. ‘Theo- 
logical niceties and ecclesiastical distinctions have”, he 
says, “a small and decreasing interest for the great 
mass of persons to-day who are interested in religion.” 
Ideals of social welfare and to some extent at least 


of social transformation form a part of his aim. 


“The world” is being interpreted in a new sense as the 
environment in which our lives must be lived, and this 
“world” may itself be transformed to make it a favorable 
medium in which to cultivate a soul. (Betts, The New 
Program of Religious Education, p. 38) 


Professor Betts’ books are forward looking. They 
express, to some extent at any rate, the point of view 
of liberal Christianity. ‘They have a tendency, how- 
ever, to leave the reader with certain questions in mind 
on which he might desire further information. Such 
questions as these: * ~ 


OBJECTIVES DEFINED 79 


1. What is Dr. Betts’ view of the function of ideas? 
Is he still under the partial domination of the old 
theory that “information” is antecedent to “applica- 
tion”? The members of the “great trio” in his three- 
fold aim—‘“fruitful knowledge”, “right attitudes”, 
“skill in living’—seem to be relatively independent 
of one another. 

2. How far does Dr. Betts recognize the educa- 
tional effect of the entire social environment? 
Although there is stress on activity, one finds com- 
paratively little effort to control the children’s 
entire environment in the interest of desired 
responses. 

3. Jesus is central in Dr. Betts’ purpose. How 
then would he explain his suggestion that material 
from the Old Testament representing an idea of God 
unlike Jesus’ idea be used for children’s first religious 
teaching? (See How to Teach Religion, p. 115.) 

4. In what sense does Dr. Betts urge a child “to 
accept the life of Jesus as the ideal and pattern for 
his own’? Both liberals and conservatives say this. 
One needs to have some idea of the implications in 
the writer’s mind. 

5. Liberal Christians hold it to be one of the pur- 
poses of religion to evaluate experience on the basis 
of Christian standards, judging their own actions, 
their surroundings, and religion itself. This objective 
does not appear in Dr. Betts’ statements. 

In his book, Childhood and Character, Professor 
Hartshorne of the University of Southern California 
gives this definition of religious education: 


80 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


Religious education, therefore, is the process by which 
the individual, in response to a controlled environment, 
achieves a progressive, conscious, social adjustment, dom- 
inated by the spirit of brotherhood, and so directed as to 
promote the growth of a social order based on regard 
for the worth and destiny of every individual. (Hartshorne, 
Childhood and Character, p. 5) 


On aims he says: 


The goal of religious education for the individual is thus 
seen to be the completely socialized will, expressed in a 
life which is sharing increasingly in the knowledge and 
work of an eternal society, and in the joy of human and 
divine companionship—in a word, world-citizenship. 

The goal of religious education for society is the re- 
organization of institutions and enterprises in such a way 
as to provide for all individuals the stimulus of the re- 
ligious heritage of the race, and equal opportunities for - 
health, education, work, play and worship—in a word, 
world-brotherhood. (Jbid., p. 6.) 


Dr. Hartshorne’s distinctive contribution to the lit- 
erature of aims lies in his analysis of the attitudes 
which religious education of this type seeks to stim- 
ulate. 


Religious education, if it be Christian, strives for the cul- 
tivation of Christian attitudes. It makes for the growth 
of the broadest possible outlook on life. It is interested 
primarily in the associations which are permanent and 
universal, and it thinks of the individuals so associated 
as members of a permanent and universal family—the chil- 
dren of God. (Hugh Hartshorne, Worship in the Sunday 
School, p. 6) 


OBJECTIVES DEFINED 81 


“Worship”, according to Dr. Hartshorne, is a 
“means by which the leader controls the group to 
develop attitudes of social value’. While he holds 
that the attitudes characteristic of Christianity 
should be thought of as actual responses to concrete 
situations, he suggests that they may be grouped 
under the following general heads—Gratitude, Good 
Will, Reverence, Faith, Loyalty. 

Professor Coe, of Teachers College, Columbia Uni- 
versity, and the late Dr. Henry F. Cope, secretary of 
the Religious Education Association, are agreed in 
advocating as the inclusive aim of religious education _ 
the reconstruction of society into a democracy—the 
democracy of God. 

In his Social Theory of Religious Education, Pro- 
fessor Coe states the aim of Christian education 
to be: 


Growth of the young toward and into mature and effi- 
cient devotion to the democracy of God, and happy self- 
realization therein. (Coe, Social Theory, p. 55) 


The aim as expressed in Dr. Cope’s latest book, 
Organizing the Church School, is 


... that men may effectively will this human living 
of ours, this world society, in spiritual terms, terms that 
make possible social good-will, instead of warring lust for 
things. Religious education seeks to develop in men the 
purposes and abilities of the Christian social order. (Cope, 
Orgamzing the Church School, p. 18) 


Professor Coe discusses the implications of social 
purpose as regards nearly all of the present issues of 


82 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


religion mentioned in this study. While he does not 
formulate definite objectives on all the issues in ques- 
tion, he has produced a philosophy of religious educa- 
tion quite consonant with the fundamental positions 
of liberal Christianity. At the present time, his book, 
The Social Theory of Religious Education, is the only 
thoroughgoing treatment in print of the principles of 
religious education from a liberal standpoint. Per- 
haps Dr. Coe’s most significant contribution to the 
literature of aims in religious education is his insistence 
on the necessity of deliberative group action and of 
revaluing traditional and widely accepted values. He 
maintains that the scientific attitude, the attitude of 
social appraisal, is fundamental to the Democracy of 
God and that this attitude can be stimulated in even 
very young children. 


Society as it now exists is quite willing to support an 
educational policy that makes for negative goodness and 
for conventional goodness; society would go as far, if it 
knew how, as to produce in its children the “rock-ribbed” 
fidelity to principle that constitutes character in the third 
sense. Up to this point religious education includes, or 
fuses with, whatever there is in “general’’ education that 
effectively socializes children. But beyond this point there 
lie, not the highways of social conformity, but the moun- 
tain trails of social reconstruction. Not the will that is 
conformed even to what is good in conventional social 
standards, but the will that is transformed into the like- 
ness of the divine democracy that is far beyond and far 
above, is the character that Christianity has to pro- 
duce. (Coe, Social Theory of Religious Education, p. 
185.) 


OBJECTIVES DEFINED 83 


Dr. Coe has given us little explicit guidance upon 
the use of the Bible beyond the statement that “if 
the curriculum is fundamentally a course in Christian 
living, the Bible will be so used at each turn of the 
child’s experience as to help him with the particular 
problem that is then uppermost”. It is however jus- 
tifiable to suppose that his position would be substan- 
tially that of the liberal writers quoted in Chapter I. 

The statements of these six men are given as sam- 
ples. Among the progressive writers in the field of 
religious education, exponents of other types have not 
been found.t 

*If this chapter were an attempt to evaluate contributions, 
it would be necessary to name many not included here. This 
is however simply an attempt to find the drift of opinion 
on particular points, 


CHAPTER V 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED BY ORGANIZATIONS FOR 
ReEticious EDUCATION 


Do the objectives controlling the organizations for 
religious education represent the educational purposes 
implicit in the liberal movement? It is not easy to 
answer this question. Such printed material as is 
available for examination often fails to reveal with 
exactness the basis of the policies pursued, even if the 
policies themselves are clearly stated. Furthermore, 
the purposes expressed in such formal documents as 
official constitutions and the like must almost of 
necessity be relatively general and therefore unillu- 
minating as to specific interpretations and issues. 

Some light may be thrown on the problem, how- 
ever, by a brief study of the announced objectives of 
the leading agencies for religious education, both de- 
nominational and interdenominational, as these are 
expressed in constitutions, periodical reports, and other 
statements in which purposes are set forth. 


DENOMINATIONAL AGENCIES 


For the purposes of this inquiry an examination has 
been made of the agencies for religious. education in 
the ten Protestant denominations having the largest 

84 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED 85 


number of members, as given in the Year Book of 
Churches, published for the Federal Council in 1923. 
They are, in order of their size: Methodist Episcopal, 
Southern Baptist Convention, National Baptist Con- 
vention, Methodist Episcopal South, Presbyterian 
(U. S. A.), Northern Baptist Convention, Disciples, 
Protestant Episcopal, Congregational, and United 
Lutheran. With them were included, as representing 
significant and somewhat different views, the religious 
education organizations of the Society of Friends 
(orthodox), and the Unitarians. 

The present forms of organization for religious edu- 
cation in these denominations, as in Protestant denom- 
inations generally, represent a development of several 
functions which most of the Protestant churches have 
been discharging for many years; that is—(1) the 
business of publishing Sunday-school books and other 
religious literature, (2) the promotion and administra- 
tion of church-schools and of denominational 
academies and colleges, including the raising of schol- 
arships, (3) young people’s work in denominational 
societies such as the Epworth League, and (4) pre- 
paring and editing curriculum material.1 With the 
increased interest in religious education characteristic 
of the last few years, there has been a movement to 
unite these functions—and sometimes others—into a 
single agency for a denomination. In some denomina- 
tions no union has yet taken place; in others a real 

*This chapter does not deal with the aims expressed in 


Sunday-school text books and other curriculum material. 
They will be considered in Chapter VI. 


86 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


fusion has been effected; in still others there is a com- 
bination of several boards, each keeping its own 
autonomy. 

Where a uniting of forces is found, it marks the 
acceptance of a broad field for religious education, 
and provides for the administration of various related © 
activities in the same general field under the direction 
of a single unified policy. 

When one studies the expressed aims of the various 
denominational organizations for religious education, 
one is struck with the absence for the most part of 
any definite position whatsoever concerning the issues 
in modern life which liberal Christians regard as su- 
premely important. Apparently the agencies make 
few attempts to analyze the implications of such gen- 
eral purposes as are set down in their constitutions. 
Typical of these general objectives are the following: 


The object of this Board shall be to promote the general 
educational interests of the Church, to conserve the re- 
ligious life of the students in the educational institutions 
of the Church; in State Universities, and in other schools; 
to stimulate the supply of candidates for the ministry; 
to administer the work of ministerial education for codper- 
ating Synods, and to render financial aid to educational 
institutions. (Constitution of the Board of Education of 
the United Lutheran Church of America, p. 7.) 


It shall be the duty of said Board to found Sunday 
Schools in needy neighborhoods; to contribute to the sup- 
port of Sunday Schools requiring assistance; to educate the 
Church in all phases of Sunday School work, constantly 
endeavoring to raise ideals and improve methods; to de- 
termine the Sunday School curriculum, including the courses 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED 87 


for teacher training; and in general, to give impulse and 
direction to the study of the Bible in the Church. It shall 
also be the duty of said Board, after consultation with 
the Editor of Sunday School Publications, to recommend 
to the Book Committee the kind and character of litera- 
ture, requisites, supplies, etc., needed for use in our Sun- 
day Schools, and the Publishing Agents shall provide and 
publish such literature, requisites, and supplies as, in the 
judgment of the Book Committee, the best interests of 
the Church may demand. It shall also be the duty of said 
Board to promote such organizations as the organized 
Bible classes, Brotherhoods, and kindred organizations. 
(Board of Sunday Schools of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, 1920. Discipline, page 468) 


The object of this organization shall be to win and hold 
its members for Christ, to promote in them an earnest 
and intelligent spiritual life, to bring them into loyal 
Church membership, and to train them in Christian serv- 
ice. (Constitution of the Junior Epworth League.) 


The objects of the Union are: (a) to foster the religious 
life, (b) to bring the young people of our several churches 
into closer relations with one another, and (c) to spread 
rational views of religion and to put into practice such 
principles of life and duty as tend to uplift mankind. 
The cardinal principles of the Union are truth, worship, 
and service. (Young People’s Religious Union of the Uni- 
tarian Societies, Year Book, 1921-1922, page 51.) 


It should be noted that in several denominations 
there appears to be included in the functions of re- 
ligious education agencies, the duty of giving expert 
educational advice and of leading the denomination 
into new educational adventures. Some phrases in 


88 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


the constitutions quoted illustrate this. There are 
other instances. The By-Laws of the Board of Edu- 
cation of the Northern Baptist Convention declare 
that “It shall be the duty of the Board of Education 
to develop the educational convictions of the churches 
represented in the Northern Baptist Convention”. 
The Unitarian Department of Religious Education 
seeks “to introduce and encourage modern methods in 
religious education in the Unitarian churches”. And 
the secretary of the Board of Education of the Dis- 
ciples of Christ announces as one of the objectives 
of his Board, “To foster an educational spirit and 
awaken an educational conscience among Disciples of 
Christ”. His appeal to the Church is noteworthy: 


One cannot be a Christian in the highest sense without 
being educational in outlook, in desire and purpose. Every 
devoted follower of Christ is a devout “searcher after 
truth.” ... There is an intellectualism which is barren 
of spiritual fruitage, and there is a sickly sentimentalism 
which parades itself as spirituality. ... Let the church 
awake. Let her cease her suspicious attitude in matters 
of the intellect. Let her throw herself with abandon into 
the great undertaking of higher education and sanctify it 
to the glory of God and the redemption of mankind. (Re- 
port of the Board of Education of the Disciples of Christ, 
Sept. 1923, p. 9.) 


Occasionally reference is made to the ultimate aim 
of bringing in the Kingdom of God. In a report of 
the Presbyterian Board, one finds this statement: 


Christian education seeks not only to impart knowledge, 
increase skill, promote efficiency and develop personality, 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED 89 


but so to develop the maturing personality that all of its 
powers and attamments will be used in accordance with 
the will of God for the establishment of that kingdom of 
righteousness and brotherhood without which the world 
can never know lasting peace and the fullest freedom. 
(1919 Year Book, Council of Church Boards of Educa- 
tion, p. 36.) 


Here we have as an end, the developing of 
individuals for the Kingdom of God. In the aims of 
the Episcopal Church there is a further recognition 
of the parish as a social unit for reconstruction. Thus, 
the Episcopal Church “affirms for the parish this edu- 
cational aim: So to nurture the growth of each indi- 
vidual, especially the child, that he may attain the 
‘mind of Christ’ and by his efficiency in the parish, 
assist it to lift the life of the community into that of 
the Kingdom of God.” (The Educational Opportunity 
of the Churchman, 1922, p. 11.) 

There is no expressed desire on the part of any one 
of the boards to consider theories of social organization 
or to attack institutionalized social abuses. Appar- 
ently this is looked upon as outside their province. 
An expression of social idealism, however, which is 
full of practical implications is found in the report 
submitted in 1915 by the Commission on Moral and 
Religious Education of the Congregational churches. 
It says in part: 


It has come to be recognized that the welfare of Prot- 
estant Christianity, as a mere question of growth, will 
depend very largely upon its educational processes. More 
fundamental than that, the problem of moral control in 


90 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


a democracy is in the last analysis, a question of religion. 
Religion deals with the roots of life from which character 
and conduct spring. One of its essential functions is to 
establish the kind of moral attitude in men and women 
which shall purify society, insuring social justice and eco- 
nomic righteousness. It goes beyond the ethics of custom 
and social contract by carrying the issue to the final court 
where God is the judge. (Minutes of the National Council, 
1915, p. 376.) 


And in the Year Book of the Board of Sunday 
Schools of the Methodist Episcopal Church for 1922, 
some paragraphs in a statement made by Professor 
George A. Coe are quoted, accompanied by these 
remarks: 


I am at liberty to quote from this statement some tren- 
chant sentences bearing upon the necessity for a frank 
facing of the charge that our present system of religious 
education is little short of futile. 

... Then this man with keen insight points out how 
the great issues of a warless world, and economic justice, 
and intellectual honesty, find small purposeful place in 
our present system of religious education. 

... In some effective way we must bring the entire 
church to a realization of the fact that the moral energy 
which she must have to meet the demands of the human 
world depends on the quality of religious education given 
childhood and youth. (Report of Corresponding Secretary, 
p. 64 ff.) 


With but few exceptions, such as have been men- 
tioned—where the general influence of liberal educa- 
tional standards can be recognized and where an en- 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED 91 


larged social consciousness is apparent—the denomina- 
tional agencies for religious education fail to express 
positive attitudes upon the crucial questions of re- 
ligion. They fail to give guidance on the use of the 
Bible, the significance of dogma, the relationship of the 
religion of Jesus to modern life, the Christian’s atti- 
tude towards his own and other nations, the value of 
ecclesiastical institutions, and other burning questions 
of the day. 

The absence of positive guidance is probably due to 
one or more of the following causes: 

(1) Failure to recognize the wmportance of defimte 
educational objectives. 

Apparently some of the leaders of the denomina- 
tional agencies are deceived by the same “illusion” to 
which Professor Miller refers in a discussion of col- 
lege life. He says: 


The great college illusion is the faith that the accumu- 
lation of buildings, “courses”, degrees, and students charac- 
teristic of the last fifty years is a progress in education. In 
other words, the illusion is that you can attain the purpose 
of education without trying to attain it, without knowing 
definitely what it is, without seeking till you find the defi- 
nite means that will secure it; that you can find it by let- 
ting it take care of itself. 

... The great illusion is but a case of the human 
failing that may be called occupationism (an ugly word 
for an ugly fact)—a physician might call it a form of 
occupation-psychosis; that is, the continued operation of 
the machinery with its daily details, the carrying on of 
the occupation according to custom quite crowds out the 
question what it is for and whether it compasses its end. 


92 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


(Dickinson Miller, The Great College Illusion, in the New 
Republic, June 22, 1921.) 


(2) Reliance upon the positions already formulated 
by the churches concerned—in, creed, catechism, canon, 
etc., or through other departments of church actiwity— 
and the expectation that fundamental policies have 
already been, or should be, the concern of the church 
at large. 

The business of the department of religious edu- 
cation has been thought of as having to do with 
the How, not the What of teaching religion. Usually 
the departments have taken for granted the generally 
accepted point of view of their constituencies. Some- 
times they act under definite instructions, as in the 
case of the Southern Baptist Board of Education when 
the last Convention adopted the following resolution: 

That, in view of the fact that the claim is being con- 
stantly, and with justification, made that text books can 
not be found for the departments of science free from 
erroneous statements with reference to evolution, our 
Education Board begin at once to seek for Christian sci- 
entists, who will prepare text books for all departments 
of science which will rightly relate science to the Bible 
and who will set forth the fact that the majority of the 
greatest men of science have repudiated Darwinism ex- 
cept as an unproven working hypothesis. (Baptist Educa- 
tion Bulletin, May, 1923, p. 14.) 

(3) Fear of alienating members of their group uf 
definite positions are taken on certain contested points. 

In some of the Protestant denominations there is 
such a wide divergence of conviction even on essential 
points that the educational departments are in obvious 
difficulty. The central tenets of the church do not 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED 93 


touch at all upon certain vital issues; on other issues 
the teachings may be—and are—‘interpreted” in 
various ways, with the result that faithful members of 
the same denomination may hold antagonistic views 
as to the fundamental direction which their education 
should take. Under the circumstances one is per- 
haps justified in suspecting a tendency to “play 
safe’ on the part of many of the denominational 
educational agencies when it comes to stating their 
objectives. 

In certain noteworthy cases, denominational agen- 
cles, organized for functions other than religious edu- 
cation, are conspicuous in that they have not taken a 
subservient or neutral attitude. For instance, the De- 
partment of Christian Social Service of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church declares its function to be “to in- 
terpret to the Church not only what social service 
means but to suggest also some things social service 
does not mean”. The Methodist Federation for Social 
Service, an agency which is officially recognized by the 
Methodist Episcopal Church although it receives no 
financial appropriation from the Church, has taken a 
clear-cut stand upon a number of vital questions, con- 
ceiving its duty to be the proposal of definite objec- 
tives and the education of the church constituency to 
the understanding and acceptance of these objectives. 
Thus, the Federation formulated the ‘Social Creed” 
which was adopted by the Methodist Church in 1908 
and later accepted, with additional clauses, by the 
Federal Council of Churches as well as by many 
Protestant denominations and other religious agencies 


94 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


—the statement now generally known as “The Social 
Ideals of the Churches.” 

The time may come when denominational agencies 
for religious education are driven—by the force of 
their own convictions, by compulsion from within 
their constituencies, or by social pressure from out- 
side—to declare their purposes in terms of the major 
issues confronting religious leaders of our generation. 
At present they appear to be for the most part, either 
ignorant of the educational demands of liberal Chris- 
tianity or indifferent to them, or in some other manner 
outside of them, or at least not consciously inside. 


INTERDENOMINATIONAL AGENCIES 


The Year Book of the Churches for 1923 lists 
twenty-four “service organizations” under the general 
heading of “Religious Education”.? They are: 


1. American Sunday School Union. 
2. Biblical Seminary in New York. 
3. Commission on Christian Education (Federal Council). 
4. Committee on Friendly Relations among Foreign 
Students. 
5. Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook (Fed- 
eral Council). 
6. Conference of Church Workers in Universities of the 
North Central Region. 
7. Conference of Church Workers in Universities of the 
USS: 
*Year Book of the Churches, 1923, pp. 309 ff. 
*The reason that this organization appears in the above 
list is not clear, but since it was included there it has seemed 
best to include it in this study. 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED 95 


8. Conference of Theological Seminaries and Colleges in 
the U. S. and Canada. 

9. Council of Church Boards of Education. 

10. International Association of Daily Vacation Bible 
Schools. 

11. International Council of Religious Education. 

12. International Sunday School Lesson Committee. 

13. Magna Charta Day Association. 

14. Missionary Education Movement. 

15. Religious Education Association. 

16. Students Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions. 

17. Sunday School Council of Evangelical Denominations. 

18. United Society of Christian Endeavor. 

19. World Association of Daily Vacation Bible Schools. 

20. World Brotherhood Federation. 

21. World’s Student Christian Federation. 

22. World’s Sunday School Association. 

23. Young Men’s Christian Association. 

24. Young Women’s Christian Association. 

These organizations represent various lines of special 
interest. Eight of them (Nos. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 16, 21) 
are concerned primarily with the religious interests 
of students; two (Nos. 1, 2) exist mainly for the 
teaching of the Bible; four (Nos. 4, 18, 14, 16) are 
devoted to missionary activities and the promoting of 
international friendships; the remaining twelve (Nos. 
5, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24) are more 
general in character.® 

*The reason that this organization appears in the above 
list is not clear, but since it was included there it has seemed 
best to include it in this study. 

*Nos. 4 and 16 concern both students and missionary 
activities and are therefore counted under both headings. 


96 | LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


Material on all the organizations enumerated has 
been collected and examined in order to determine 
whether or not the expressed purposes of each organi- 
zation showed indications of the attitudes character- 
istic of liberal Christianity. 

The accompanying chart reveals in a rough fashion 
the result of this study. Where there was apparent 
agreement in one or more respects with the liberal 
position (as presented in Chapters I and II) this was 
indicated by a plus sign (+). Where evidence dis- 
closed an opposing position this was indicated by a 
minus sign (—). In two instances where organiza- 
tions expressed conflicting points of view on the same 
issue, both signs were used (+). 


(See Chart on opposite page) 


The chart may be misleading. In interpreting it, the 
following facts should be kept in mind: 

(1) The examination was restricted to such 
printed material as was available. Informal inquiry 
of present leaders of the various organizations might 
bring forth different results. 

(2) A plus (+) does not mean that the organiza- 
tion in question should necessarily be counted as en- 
tirely liberal on any given issue, but as liberal in one 
or more respects. The like caution should be observed 
when a minus sign appears. 

(3) <A blank may indicate either that the issue was 

° Nos. 6, 7, 8, and 17 do not appear on the chart. Nos. 


6, 7, 8 exist only for conference and have scarcely any printed 
literature. No. 17 has gone out of existence. 


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98 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


not touched upon at all or that no positive stand for 
or against the liberal position could be discovered. 

(4) Neglect to take a positive stand upon any 
specific issue may be due to the fact that considera- 
tion of the issue is outside the declared function of the 
organization. Many of the blanks may be thus ex- 
plained. 

In spite of these suggested limitations in our inter- 
pretation, it is clear that the results of this inquiry 
are vitally significant. A brief survey of the main 
conclusions will indicate the tendencies of interde- 
nominational organizations of the present day in their 
relation to the demands of liberalism. 

1. Reconstruction in the use of the Bible in re- 
ligious education is not declared to be an important 
purpose by any one of these organizations. 

Is this because such reconstruction is thought to be 
no longer necessary to-day? Evidence suggests that 
such is the position of the Religious Education Asso- 
ciation: 

To the superficial reader it may seem strange that the 
early conventions of the R. E. A. had a great deal more to 
say about the scientific and the historical methods of Bible 
study than have the later ones. That early emphasis was 
simply the declaration of the new discovery which we have 
mentioned, that the scientific method opened up to us a 
religion that was worth teaching. (H. F. Cope, Twenty 
Years’ Progress in Religious Education, in Religious Hduca- 
tion, Oct. 1923, p. 309.) 


Two organizations among those listed align them- 
selves definitely against the point of view of liberal 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED 99 


Christianity in regard to the Bible. In its annual 
report one of them makes this declaration: 


They [the leaders of the American Sunday School Union] 
thoroughly believe in applying sound educational principles 
to the Christian training of the young wherever it is under- 
taken, whether in weekday or on Sunday. They, however, 
lay primary emphasis on the Bible not as a book of litera- 
ture, history, information, or of character. They believe 
that primarily it contains God’s message of Salvation in 
His Gospel of grace, and that this message is not for the 
adult alone, but should be presented to the child and the 
growing boy and girl in forms adapted to their stage of 
development and made interesting and convincing to their 
understanding. (The One Hundred and Sixth Annual Re- 
port of the American Sunday School Union, 1923, p. 7.) 


The other organization, in speaking of Bible study, 
says: 


The student is trained in first hand, direct study of the 
Bible in his own tongue, with reliance upon the Holy Spirit 
for guidance. He is taught to take a new view of the facts, 
without the limiting influence of any previous theory or 
doctrine. On this point, however, he must guard against 
the idea that the past can teach him little or nothing. 

He is taught to read nothing into the Scriptures, but to 
learn to draw from them all they are intended to yield the 
searcher for truth. (Catalogue of the Biblical Seminary in 
New York, 1923-1924, p. 16.) 


and furthermore: 


Various schools, by devoting too much attention to the 
externals of Biblical knowledge, such as critical questions 
of Scriptural history and literature, had fostered the specu- 


100 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


lative type of student until a destructive Biblical scholarship 
resulted. (Jbrd., p. 15.) 


A great many of the organizations on the list are 
concerned with teaching the Bible and refer to its 
importance, but no one of them—with the exception 
of the three mentioned—gives any clear indication of 
the point of view from which the Bible is to be 
taught. 

2. The issues on which the organizations express 
themselves most clearly as having purposes character- 
istic of liberal Christianity are the issues relating to 
international and inter-racial problems. 

While on the whole, the organizations are silent or 
non-committal upon the Bible, upon these issues many 
of them express themselves in unmistakably liberal 
terms. 

Noteworthy among the expressions of liberalism are 
the following: 


The World Brotherhood Federation holds as one of its 
cardinal principles that men and women everywhere, are 
at heart kindly and well-disposed, although their goodwill 
is only too often overlaid by unworthy traits; and it is to 
this great body of goodwill in all lands that the Federation 
issues its Challenge and is striving to bring its Message of 
World Brotherhood. That this Brotherhood basis exists in 
Germany in large measure, the following pages show; and 
it is in the hope and belief that this Report may help to 
restore a better understanding between nations which ought 
never to have been sundered that the British Council of the 
World Brotherhood Federation have ordered it to be pub- 
lished. (Foreword in pamphlet on Brotherhood Mission to 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED 101 


Germany in 1922, published by the World Brotherhood 
Federation.) 


Resolved: That it is our conviction that the further use 
of war as an instrument for the settlement of disputes 
should be abolished, and that war between nations should 
be declared to be a public crime and should be outlawed. 
(Y.W.C.A. Seventh National Convention, April 20-27, 
1922. Report, p. 337.) 


To bring students of all countries into mutual under- 
standing and sympathy, to lead them to realize that the 
principles of Jesus Christ should rule in international rela- 
tionships, and to endeavor by so doing to draw the nations 
together. (From the purpose of the World’s Student Chris- 
tian Federation.) 


. With special reference to graded materials it may be said 
that the literature especially planned for children and 
young people with the purpose of cultivating a spirit of 
world friendship and opening up to them practical forms 
of expression of Christian helpfulness to their neighbors and 
to those of distant lands is perhaps the most significant 
feature of the Movement’s work. (Typewritten statement 
of the work of the Missionary Education Movement, used 
by special permission.) 


In the future, however, the missionary will also have a 
friendly appreciation of the vital truths in non-Christian 
thinking and literature. (Missionary Outlook in the Light 
of the War, published by the Committee on War and the 
Religious Outlook, p. 227.) 

It should no longer be possible for the Christian mis- 
sionary in any land to take the position that he is racially 
superior to those whom he is attempting to reach with his 
gospel message. (Jbid., p. 240.) 


102 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


The nations are groping almost desperately after some 
way of living together in peace. The only enduring bonds 
of peace are forged in friendships. . . . Can Christians ery, 
“peace, peace,’ and deny the simple obligations of kindness 
and goodwill? How shall they fight national antagonisms 
as a church if as individuals they deny fellowship to the 
best representatives of other races?” (Pamphlet published 
by the Committee on Friendly Relations with Foreign 
Students.) 


Only two organizations of those studied were found 
to express attitudes on international questions which 
were other than liberal. The Committee on War and 
the Religious Outlook, while clearly liberal on many 
points, apparently considers that war has sometimes 
a generally purifying effect. In War and the Religious 
Outlook, by Robert E. Speer, one finds these state- 
ments: 


In the first place, in spite of all the harmful effects of 
the war upon men’s lives, the net result of the experience 
of the young manhood and womanhood of the nation during 
the years of war will probably be found to have been good. 
It has been a great educational discipline. ...It has 
magnified in men’s minds the significance of moral and 
spiritual values. (pp. 10-11.) 


and again, 


Most clearly of all has the war reaffirmed the glory of 
Christ and the validity of His Gospel. (p. 18.) 


One of the organizations, the International Magna 
Charta Day Association, is apparently planned to 
unite the English speaking world for the purpose of 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED 103 


“holding together and presenting a common front to 
the enemy”. In its statement, it urges the public “to 
remember the fact that the Anglo-Saxon race has kept 
the light of its lamp of liberty shining clearly and 
definitely ahead of every other race”, and goes on 
to declare that “the movement is bigger than any race, 
but it does not lose sight of the fact that one race 
has done more than all other people to give us the 
civil and religious liberty we enjoy”. This is the only 
organization listed whose entire point of view on inter- 
national relations appears definitely not in accord with 
that of liberal Christianity. 

3. Indications of liberal tendencies in regard to the 
educational process are largely confined to a desire 
on the part of several agencies to carry on research 
of a scientific and scholarly character. 

This desire was expressed in the Annual Report for 
1922 of the Executive Secretary of the Council of the 
Church Boards of Education when he said: 


‘The fundamental task of the Council is that of research. 
This is true because the enterprises of Christian education 
must be built upon the basis of knowledge. There is noth- 
ing quite so eloquent as a fact. There are some things that 
we may and should know. (Annual Report, published in 
Christian Education, Vol. VI, No. 5, p. 229.) 


The International Council of Religio..s Education 
and the International Lesson Committee regard re- 
search as one of their functions; as do the two Chris- 
tian Associations, and the Religious Education Asso- 
ciation. 

In a recent editorial in Relzgious Education, the of- 


104 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


ficial organ of the Religious Education Association, we 
find this statement: 


The outstanding need in religious education is the scien- 
tific examination and testing of current activity and proc- 
esses, the measurement of results and the discovery of sound 
methods. To this the high aim of religious education and 
the critical need of the hour call for the devotion of all 
our spiritual purposes, of all available scientific efficiency, 
and of every necessary resource. (Religious Education, 
June, 1923, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, p. 154.) 


The Biblical Seminary is in favor of independent 
investigation and unbiased study: 


Thorough investigation is encouraged, and the fullest 
consideration is afforded both sides of any debatable ques- 
tion. Students are expected to decide for themselves. 
Every encouragement is given to serious, impartial, and 
unbiased study. (Catalogue, Biblical Seminary in New 
York, 1923-1924, p. 18.) 


4. Practically no tendency is shown to protest 
against the teaching of traditional dogmas, or to rein- 
terpret ancient phraseology in terms of to-day. 

Two exceptions are noteworthy. The Committee 
on the War and the Religious Outlook, in two of its 
published reports, has been decidedly liberal. For 
instance: 


So far as traditional theology or forms of expression are 
foreign to our manner of thinking in the present day, the 
responsibility sharply confronts us to find terminology that 
is in keeping with modern knowledge and experience. (Re- 
ligion Among American Men, p. 189.) 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED 105 


Not theology but Jesus brings the world to repentance. 
(The Missionary Outlook in the Inght of the War, p. 227.) 


The World Brotherhood Federation declares itself 
definitely against creedal tests: 


A constitution was drafted on broad lines, breathing the 
spirit of brotherhood as taught and exemplified in the life 
and spirit of Jesus Christ. It was emphatically declared 
that the movement was to be non-sectarian and undenomi- 
national, entirely free from the bias of party politics and 
no social distinctions to be regarded among the members. 
No creed was to be imposed upon the members nor any 
test applied. The great principle laid down in the Book 
of Revelation was to be the prevailing policy: “Behold, I 
have set before thee an open door and no man can shut it.” 
An applicant for membership was to be asked only one 
question: What is your name and address? At the same 
time great care was taken to emphasize the fact that it was 
essentially and preéminently a religious Movement. The 
motto adopted was: “One is your Master, even Christ, and 
all ye are brothers.” It was declared that “The Bible is 
our guide” and the primary object of the Movement was 
stated to be “To lead men into the Kingdom of God!” 
(President’s address, Proceedings of the World Brotherhood 
Conference, 1921, p. 9.) 


Several of the organizations include in their official 
statements a doctrinal affirmation of more or less 
definiteness expressed in traditional forms, such as 
the following: 


To lead students to accept the Christian faith in God, 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, according to the Scriptures, 
and to live as true disciples of Jesus Christ. (Quo Vadis, 


106 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


A Review of the World’s Student Christian Federation—a 
portion of the Constitution.) 


Affirming the Christian faith in God the Father; and in 
Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord and Saviour; and in 
the Holy Spirit, the Revealer of Truth and Source of 
power for life and service; according to the teaching of 
Holy Scripture and the witness of the Church, we adopt 
the following Constitution. (Preamble to the Constitution 
of the Y.W.C.A., Report of the Seventh National Con- 
vention, p. 345.) 


On its Biblical side, it is established upon the historic 
doctrines of the church, such as, the Trinity, the Deity of 
Christ, His Virgin Birth, His Death and Resurrection, the 
Atonement, and the Inspiration of the Scriptures. (Infor- 
mation sheet on the Biblical Seminary in New York.) 


We find it our special joy to teach of Christ. His eternal 
deity, His true humanity, His sinless holiness, His perfect 
oneness with the Father. We emphasize His matchless 
teachings, His deeds of mercy, His atoning death, His bodily 
resurrection, His intercession for believers, His coming 
triumph. (One Hundred and Sixth Annual Report, Ameri- 
can Sunday School Union, p. 8.) 


The Young Men’s Christian Associations seek to unite 
those young men who, regarding Jesus Christ as their God 
and Saviour, according to the Holy Scriptures, desire to be 
His disciples in their doctrine and in their life, and to 
associate their efforts for the extension of His Kingdom 
among men. (YVhe Paris Basis, adopted in 1855 and still 
representing the objective of the Association.) 


The fact that many of the organizations are silent 
when it comes to matters of doctrine is probably sig- 
nificant. Various explanations for this are possible. 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED 107 


In some cases, it undoubtedly does indicate an actual 
shifting of emphasis to other issues. It may, however, 
be due to a desire not to offend or to cause dissension. 
Or perhaps no definite doctrinal statement was in- 
eluded simply because the expression of any such 
statement was considered outside the province of that 
particular organization. 

5. It is interesting to note that the church and 
the political state receive approximately an equal 
measure of neglect. 

While all the organizations are interdenominational 
and to that extent liberal, other indications of a liberal 
attitude towards the church are rare. Indeed they 
reduce themselves to a very few statements like the 
following, where the church is frankly criticized: 


It is the failure really to know the facts and to keep 
apace with the more complex problems of modern life that 
has led many men with a passion for social service and 
brotherhood to realize their ends apart from the Church. 
It is this which has kept the Church content to walk in 
paths already blazed, to devote itself to dispensing charity 
rather than to securing justice, to relieving need rather 
than to removing causes that make relief necessary. It 
has cared for the sick and the maimed, but has not been 
concerned with securing working conditions that would 
safeguard human values in the factory. It has fed the 
hungry, but has not struck at the industrial conditions that 
are chiefly responsible for poverty. It has established 
missions for those who were “down and out,” but it has 
not directed its energies to modifying the system of casual 
labor that every year throws thousands of men out of 
work and helps to replenish the ranks of the “down and 


108 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


out,” faster than the Church can rescue them. The prob- 
lem of social justice is the one great ethical problem which 
the Churches have not seriously touched. And this has been 
because they did not really understand the economic forces 
that were at work. (The Church and Industrial Recon- 
struction, p. 224.) 


In the same report a plea is made for more fellow- 
ship within the Church: 


When all is said and done, it remains true that whatever 
else the Church may do to secure the adoption of Christian 
principles in social relationships, its greatest opportunity 
in this direction lies in actually being, in its own corporate 
life, the kind of a brotherhood which it proclaims as the 
social ideal. If it is not itself a truly democratic fellowship, 
it will have pitiably small influence in securing a brotherly 
fellowship in the world at large. (/bid., p. 236.) 


Such demands on the Church are not found in these 
organizations except in this single instance. 

Nor do most of the organizations studied commit 
themselves to liberal attitudes towards the state ex- 
cept in so far as such attitudes are implied in progres- 
sive statements on social reconstruction and interna- 
tional and inter-racial problems. A notable exception 
to the rule is the Missionary Education Movement, 
whose recent volumes on home missions (published 
under the names of single authors but prepared in co- 
operation with a committee and with the official sanc- 
tion of the organization) are conspicuously liberal in 
attitude.* In this connection also, the efforts of the 


“See citations above, pp. 50 and 51. 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED 109 


Young Women’s Christian Association in legislation 
for women should be mentioned. 

Does this lack of positive aim in reference to both 
church and state indicate an apathetic attitude to- 
ward these historic institutions? Here again, one 
must be cautious in drawing inferences. One must 
remember, for instance, that nearly all these organiza- 
tions are vitally connected with churches and that 
when they advocate reform movements of one kind 
or another they are working for reforms within the 
churches. It does seem clear, however, that the inter- 
denominational organizations on this list do not, as a 
whole, encourage the vigorous criticism of church and 
state characteristic of liberal Christianity, nor are 
they disposed as a part of their purpose to insist upon 
a more adequate functioning of these institutions. 

6. If we could discover on what conceptions of 
the make-up of human nature the purposes of these 
organizations were based, such discovery would be of 
great value. Only a few fragmentary phrases give 
us a clue. 


The bare individual, as such, is an abstraction; he exists 
only in relationships. . . 

...And men must be evangelized not only as social 
beings but as social beings with specific functions in society. 
(The Church and Industrial Reconstruction, pp. 216, 
Bids) 


The aim therefore is not merely to impart information, 
but to develop character, to encourage to as holy a life as it 
is possible for a pardoned sinner to live. (Catalogue, 
Biblical Seminary, 1923-24, p. 18.) 


110 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


A united protestant effort to plant in the heart life of 
the childhood of Europe the seed of the true gospel will 
bring a fruitage to this age of Christian leadership equal to, 
if not greater, than has been given in the past. (Year 
Book, World’s Sunday School Association, 19238, p. 16.) 


. . . Those who thus focused attention on children dis- 
covered that they were living persons, that they lived with 
others, in a society from which they could not be separated, 
and that this living person we seek to educate is not an 
individual, but a part of that social whole of humanity in 
which the very reality and the inspiring purpose of religion 
is found. Religious education could not face the child and 
miss the world. (Cope, Twenty Years’ Progress in Religious 
Education, in Religious Education, Oct., 1923, p. 318.) 


The first and last of the references cited reveal a 
recognition of the social character of personality ex- 
ceedingly significant for religious education. It is 
worthy of note that we find an explicit statement of 
this recognition in the case of only two out of the 
twenty-four organizations. 

7. Social welfare and the reconstruction of society 
are included in the purposes of a considerable number 
of the organizations studied. Liberal attitudes on one 
of these issues apparently include similar attitudes on 
the other issue. Social welfare and social regeneration 
go together. In almost every case, these are clearly 
connected with Christian ideals, and direct reference 
is made to the principles of Jesus. 

Only in the case of two of the organizations does 
one find the inclination to contrast “spiritual” and 
“social”; 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED “111 


Christian Endeavor is essentially a spiritual organization. 
While its program includes physical and social activities of 
all sorts, these are regarded as merely means to an end. 
The primary purpose of the society is the spiritual develop- 
ment of young people. (Pamphlet, Christian Endeavor in 
the Church, by E. P. Gates, p. 2.) 


The following are typical examples of interest in 
social welfare and in the reconstruction of society: 


Resolved: That in the future we endeavor to secure a 
more widespread study of the social conditions of to-day 
and of the ways in which we can promote the principles of 
the Social Ideals of the Churches. (Report of the 
Y.W.C.A., Seventh National Convention, April, 1922, 
p. 334.) 


In general, then, we have moved in two main direc- 
tions: toward the place where both religion and education 
have taken religious education with increasing seriousness 
and tend to include it in those great affairs of human life 
which have a scientific basis, and also, toward the recogni- 
tion of religious education as a social necessity, as the 
hope of social salvation. If twenty years ago the agita- 
tion for religious education seemed to promise better Sunday 
schools, to-day it seems to offer the way of a new, and 
spiritual society. (Cope, Twenty Years Progress in Re- 
ligious Education, Oct., 1923., p. 314.) 


Its [the church’s] failure, for example, to reach the labor 
movement more directly has been in large measure due to 
its failure to appreciate the significance of that movement. 
The Church has generally condemned it as materialistic, 
failing to see the genuinely spiritual undercurrent that lay 
beneath much of the demand for better wages, and hours, 
and status. It has not understood that, although the im- 


112 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


mediate and conscious objective was more material goods, 
they were really craving these because they are the means 
to more complete self-realization and more abundant life. 
(The Church and Industrial Reconstruction, p. 224.) 


But much of our so-called Christian civilization is still 
predominantly pagan, and students are more apt to adopt 
the un-Christian ideals of wealth and power, conquest and 
exploitation, than the Christian ideals of personal service 
and public good. Small wonder if these susceptible minds, 
finding themselves in Rome, straightway do as the Romans 
do, and find what we do as a nation to be so convincing 
that they cannot hear the voices of our preachers and 
prophets. Loud lament of these conditions comes from the 
mission fields, and Christian workers in America are under 
rather severe condemnation. (Leaflet, Committee on 
Friendly Relations with Foreign Students.) 


8. Attention should be called to the fact that the 
International Council of Religious Education, prob- 
ably the largest and most influential of all the agencies 
for religious education in the United States, fails to 
commit itself on any of the issues with which liberal- 
ism is concerned—with the exception of a recognition 
of the importance of scientific research. There is 
ground for hope in that the 1924 Year Book an- 
nounces that two sub-committees, on Tendencies in 
Modern Education and on the Theory of the Cur- 
riculum, are at work on statements which they will 
“submit at a later time’, but we have, as yet, no evi- 
dence that they have adopted anything new. At pres- 
ent, our investigation of the purposes of the organiza- 
tion yields little but negative results. 


OBJECTIVES ANNOUNCED 113 


It is, perhaps, because they include a wider range 
of activities that the study of interdenominational 
agencies leads to more definite findings on the whole 
than was the case in our study of denominational 
agencies for religious education. 

As indication of the present situation in regard to 
the demands of liberal Christianity, it may be inter- 
esting to note the relative prominence of liberal points 
of view on the several issues discussed. Giving one 
point’s credit for any sign of liberal tendency 
(whether in one or more respects) and deducting a 
point for any indication of a tendency in opposition 
to the standpoints of liberalism, on the basis of data 
secured the issues range themselves as follows: ° 


International and interracial relations........ 7 points 
Educational process (mainly research’)...... iN 

Reconstruction of society .........seecesecs 
Oui MEME HE OM ar Ll ca teniecl asia tics decile tis see as» 
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This amazing curve is as much a surprise to the 
writer as it is likely to be to the reader. As a safe- 
guard against error, correspondence with representa- 
tives of the various organizations was resorted to, but 
as yet nothing has been received which would lead 
to a modification of these findings. 


* As indicated in the total column on the chart above, p. 97. 
*This term is used broadly for investigation, rather than 
narrowly in university departments. 


CHAPTER VI 
CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 


Tpext-Books for the religious education of Protestant 
children and young people furnish our next evidence 
as to the situation. How far do they show a recogni- 
tion of the issues important for liberal Christianity 
and an attempt to meet them from a liberal point of 
view? Most of the denominations issue one or more 
lesson series which include text-books for every year 
of the twelve years of school life, with additional 
volumes for classes of “young people” and “adults”. 
Non-denominational publishing houses produce ma- 
terial for general use. Societies such as the Epworth 
League and the United Society of Christian Endeavor 
prepare their own study courses. The recent move- 
ments for Daily Vacation Bible Schools and Week-day 
Schools of Religion have occasioned the output of 
much special material which is being issued to the 
public with astonishing rapidity. 

It is not necessary for the purposes of this inquiry 
to make a thorough study of all available text books. 
In order to keep the investigation within reasonable 
limits and at the same time to give a fair survey of 
the present situation, the following lesson series have 
been selected: 

114 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 115 


. The International Group-Uniform Series. 

. The International Graded Lessons. 

. The Scribner Completely Graded Series. 

. The Constructive Studies (published by the University 
of Chicago Press). 

. The Beacon Course of Graded Lessons (Unitarian). 

. The Christian Nurture Series (Protestant Episcopal). 

. The Abingdon Week Day Texts in Religion. 

. The Pilgrim Plan Books for Religious Education. 


mw hh 


CO NI o> Cr 


The basis upon which this selection was made was 
as follows: 

The two International Series have been selected be- 
cause they are the most widely used and because they 
have the official approval of the thirty-two Protestant 
denominations who codperate through the Interna- 
tional Council of Religious Education. While the In- 
ternational Lesson Committee is responsible for the 
topics, Bible passages, and memory verses used in all 
the texts issued, the actual text-books—including 
stories, comments, lesson aims, etc.—are prepared by 
the various codperating denominations either in- 
dividually or jointly as the case may be. To give 
variety to this investigation the books in the Inter- 
national Group-Umform Series published by Northern 
Baptists have been studied; and for the Graded Les- 
sons, the Methodist Episcopal texts.* 

The Scribner Series and the Constructive Studies 
were chosen because, having been freely constructed to 

1The same graded material (prepared by a syndicate of 
denominational publishing houses) is used officially in the 


Methodist Church South, the Congregational Church, and 
originally it was also used by the Presbyterians (U.S.A.). 


116 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


supply a smaller and probably more discriminating 
market, they may be supposed to be relatively inde- 
pendent of traditional restrictions. 

Two denominational series were included—the Bea- 
con Course, and the Christian Nurture Series. One of 
these represents a denomination that is professedly 
liberal, and the other a denomination that seeks to 
be broad enough to represent Christianity in its 
totality. 

The Abingdon Week Day Texts and the Pilgrim 
Plan Books have been chosen because they were con- 
structed to meet the needs of week day schools— 
schools which are supposed to touch the conditions of 
modern life with unusual freedom. 

It is believed that these series, taken as a whole, 
are representative of curriculum material in general 
use, and that they cannot fail to do justice to what- 
ever liberalism there is in the official teaching of the 
Protestant churches. In the series selected all the 
text-books prepared for pupils in the kindergarten, ele- 
mentary school, and high school have been reviewed; 
that is, books for pupils up to approximately eighteen 
years of age. Material for older students was not 
included in this survey. 

It should be remembered that our concern is with 
the objectives for which these text-books were writ- 
ten. Occasionally effort has been required not to 
include in the study some consideration of the educa- 
tional methods by which the stated objectives are to 
be carried out. But we have sternly limited the in- 
quiry to the main question: How far do the an- 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 117 


nounced aims of Protestant lesson material represent 
the educational purposes of liberal Christianity? ? 
Here we have been embarrassed not by a lack of ex- 
pressed aims but by a bewildering array of them. 
Many of the lesson series have formulated aims 
(1) for the entire series, (2) for each department, 
(3) for each week in the year. Thus it is possible 
for a single series to include 734 aims, and several 
series have approximately this number! 


1. Tue INTERNATIONAL GRouP-UNIFORM SERIES 


The Group-Uniform Series represents a combina- 
tion of the old uniform-lesson plan whereby all the 
members of a church school studied the same Scrip- 
ture passage on any given Sunday of the year, and 
the more recent plan for gradation of material by 
departments. The older students—‘intermediates”’, 
“young people”, and ‘“adults’”—follow the same Bible 
references, with adaptations in treatment for each 
department, but special topics and references are 
chosen for the Primary Department and again for the 
Junior Department. Kindergarten children are ex- 
pected to use the two-year course in the Graded 
Lessons. 

Quarterlies in this series, published by the American 

*The announced aims may not always represent the actual 
purposes controlling the writers of the courses. In some 
cases, the authors and editors were no doubt influenced by a 
consideration of what it was feasible to present to the public. 


At any rate the aims as announced do serve to show the 
present situation in reference to curriculum material. 


118 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


Baptist Publication Society for the first six months of 
the year 1924 were used for study. 
The general aim of the series is stated to be: 


To nurture the growing moral and religious life of the 
child, and to lead to a permanent commitment of that life 
to God, through Jesus Christ, and to fitness for service in 
His Kingdom. (International Year Book of Religious. 
Education, 1924, p. 49.) 


and further, (p. 50) 


These lessons are predominantly Biblical; that is, they 
are selected, chiefly, from Biblical materials; and as a part 
of the moral and religious nurture which is their total 
purpose, they aim to impart a comprehensive knowledge of 
the Bible, and to afford to the pupil the disposition and 
the ability to use God’s Word intelligently. 


Aims are stated for each Sunday. These aims for 
the most part are relatively abstract aind general and 
therefore not directly concerned with the concrete 
issues of life. They cannot be classed as a whole as 
representing the positions of liberalism or as posi- 
tively opposed to them. 

Many of the aims are exceedingly vague. For ex- 
ample: “To strengthen the pupils’ faith in God as 
their Protector and Helper,” and, “To show that God’s 
love and care watches over those who serve Him.” 
Each of these is to be accomplished in a single lesson. 

Several of the aims are ambiguous. Whether they 
are liberal or the reverse depends on ideas to be asso- 
ciated with them. There is no evidence, however, of 
anything other than the traditional interpretation of 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 119 


such aims as, “To strengthen the conviction that Jesus 
Christ is the Son of God, and to increase in each 
heart the desire to accept Jesus as Leader and as 
Lord” or, “To show that Jesus has power over death 
and that those who believe in him shall have life 
everlasting”’. 

In some of the aims liberal tendencies appear. A 
new appreciation of children of other races is certainly 
suggested by the lesson aim, “To acquaint the children 
with their world brothers and sisters and to help them 
realize that in the Father’s sight all are equal”. And 
in connection with a lesson on the fall of Jerusalem, 
the problem is raised, ‘““How can a nation be brought 
to repentance?”’, and one finds this statement, “The 
world has suffered the agony of these last years be- 
cause nations where Christianity has been preached 
for years did not act toward each other according to 
the principles of Jesus. Your pupils must be made 
to think in terms of national morality.” The impli- 
cations of these words are very far reaching; they 
might well lead to a consideration of many funda- 
mental issues. 

Aims found in the quarterly for the Intermediate 
group are clearly more liberal than the aims in the 
Junior and Primary quarterlies. This may be due 
to one or more of the following causes: (1) The point 
of view of the writers. The three quarterlies are writ- 
ten by three different persons. (2) The subject mat- 
ter studied. It may be significant that the Junior 
material on the life of Christ exhibits the least liberal 
point of view. The Intermediates are studying Old 


120 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


Testament material. (3) The age of the pupils. Per- 
haps the doctrinal emphasis in the Junior Department 
is due to a desire to teach Christian doctrine in prep- 
aration for the coming into Church membership which 
is often expected at the end of the Junior period. Also, 
it may be considered unwise to introduce pupils to 
the results of scientific study of the Bible before they 
enter the High School. 

While the material in this series shows occasional 
hints of liberalism at specific points—especially in 
the use of the Old Testament for high school pupils— 
in general it is clearly traditional in character. 
Throughout the courses the emphasis is upon Bible 
knowledge of a rather undifferentiated type and upon 
generalized virtues as the expected outcome of such 
knowledge. 


2. Tue INTERNATIONAL GRADED LESSONS 


For the entire series and for the age groupings with 
which we are concerned in this study, objectives are 
stated as follows: 


The general purpose of the Graded Lessons is to meet the 
spiritual needs of the pupil in each stage of his development. 
The spiritual needs broadly stated are these: 

1. To know God as he has revealed himself to us in his 

Word, in nature, in the heart of man, and in Christ. 

2. To exercise toward God, the Father, and his Son, Jesus 

Christ our Lord and Saviour, trust, obedience and 
worship. 

3. To know and do our duty to others. 

4. To know and do our duty to ourselves. 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 121 


The purpose of the Beginners’ lessons is to lead the little 
child to the Father. 

The lessons for the Primary children seek to lead the 
child to know the heavenly Father, and to inspire within 
him a desire to live as God’s child. 

The lessons for boys and girls are planned to lead the 
child to become a doer of the Word, and to bring him into 
conscious relations with the Lord Jesus Christ as his 
Saviour. 

The lessons for older boys and girls aim to present the 
highest possible ideals of Christian living, and to lead the 
pupil to accept Jesus as his personal Saviour and the Master 
of his life; to organize the conflicting impulses of life so as 
to develop habits of Christian service. 


These objectives represent certain significant devel- 
opments in the theory of curriculum-making in re- 
ligious education. Not only is the principle of growth 
in experience and therefore the necessity of gradation 
explicitly recognized, but further than this, there is 
an extension of subject matter to include material 
other than Biblical. In addition, one finds that Chris- 
tian activity is not simply to be taken for granted 
as a by-product of Christian knowledge but is delib- 
erately planned for; thus, “to do our duty to others”, 
“to become a doer of the Word”, are among the aims 
of the series. 

The expressed objectives are, however, not definitely 
liberal. They are too general and abstract. They 
leave us at a loss to determine the very things we 
want to know about the purposes of the curriculum. 
For this we must turn to an examination of the various 
courses making up the series. 


122 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY | 


Beginners 


The emphasis in the aims of the two Beginners’ 
courses is put on “knowing”—‘knowing God”, “know- 
ing Jesus Christ”, and “knowing about the heavenly 
home”. It is apparently the conviction of the writer 
that to little children God should be presented as re- 
vealing himself primarily in the forces of nature— 
wind, sun, stars, rain and snow, etc.,—in his care of 
animals, and in his protection of humanity. The chil- 
dren are taught to “know” this God as Creator and 
Protector, and to respond to his protecting care by 
kindness, obedience, and trust. One finds no indication 
here of a conception of God as a loving Father who 
not only protects but who is continually at work 
creating an ideal society and is to be found wherever 
real fellowship exists. 

The little children are led chiefly to prearranged 
appreciations; no effort is made to lead them to 
form their own standards by their own evaluation 
of experience. 

There is no attempt to encourage them by means 
of actual experiences on the level of their capacity— 
for instance, their own experiences of negroes and 
Jews—to see through little children’s eyes some of 
the great religious issues of the present day, such as 
inter-racial relations, war and peace, industrial justice. 


Primary Courses (Grades I, II, III) 


Elaborate aims are formulated for each year of the 
Primary group. The emphasis of the first two years 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 123 


is on “religious feelings, love, trust, and obedience”, 
and for the third year on activity “in reasoned obedi- 
ence to awakening inner authority,” and, “love and 
loyalty to Christ.” 

It is stated that: 


The results hoped for in the life of the child who com- 
pletes this series of lessons are an awakened spiritual life, 
a sense of personal responsibility for right conduct, strong 
personal initiative in choosing the right and in serving and 
obeying God, and the foundation laid for Christian 
character. It is hoped that among the children to 
whom the lessons will be taught there will be some 
whom they will help to unconsciously become child 
Christians. 


Are not these objectives based on the assumption 
that only a few children of this age are capable of 
being Christians and that even these should not know 
themselves as such? 

The aims for the separate lessons are very similar 
to those for Beginners except that here a larger pro- 
portion of them are concerned with desirable activ- 
ities of personal conduct and take such forms as, “To 
give the child the idea of what it means to be a 
friend to others and to arouse his friendly feelings 
toward his playmates”. 

In general there is lack of definiteness in the stated 
aims. This is, no doubt, due in part to the fact that 
they were intended to serve as goals for teachers 
working with groups of children in various unlike 
situations. That it may also be because the demands 
of Christian living were not related to concrete issues 


124 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


is suggested by the fact that at one point at which 
the issue is clear, the aim is formulated with the 
greatest definiteness. This is in a “temperance lesson” 
where the aim is, “To lead the child [of eight!] to 
abstain from rich injurious food and from wines or 
any alcoholic liquor”. 

Although practically all the stories in these Primary 
courses are from the Bible, it is difficult to determine 
whether or not the controlling attitude toward the 
Bible shows liberal tendencies because in almost every 
case the aim of the Bible lesson has nothing to do with 
the Bible itself and all the Bible stories are used homi- 
letically—that is, to throw light on the moral needs 
of children to-day. One can infer, however, that on 
the whole, the attitude toward the Bible is the tradi- 
tional attitude. While the stories of Jesus’ miracles 
are told with emphasis upon his helpfulness rather 
than upon his wonder-working power, there is no at- 
tempt to differentiate between narratives or to prepare 
for later critical study, for instance of the birth stories 
of Jesus and the resurrection. 

With the exception of the question of prohibition, 
it is true for the children of this group as it was for 
the Beginners that the area of their religious activi- 
ties is treated as decidedly limited. Is this limited 
area the world of childhood? Is it the religious world? 
If children are actually asking questions about the 
Bible and are concerned about its truthfulness and 
morality; if they are meeting industrial injustice and 
racial problems; then liberals believe—as has been 
indicated in earlier chapters—that it must be the pur- 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 125 


pose of religious education to give guidance at these 
points. 


Junior Course (Grades IV, V, VI, VII) 


The general aim of the courses for grades four to 
seven is, “To help the child become a doer of the 
Word, and to lead him to conscious loyalty to Jesus 
Christ”. 

In these lessons, unlike those in the courses for 
younger children, attitudes toward the Bible and to- 
ward Christian belief are clearly indicated. The first 
lesson of the four courses is on the Creation. Its aim 
is, “To present the thought of God as the Creator of 
all things, the rightful ruler of the universe, and to 
establish in the child an attitude of reverence toward 
God as Creator, and toward nature as his work.” 
Other aims representing traditional points of view are, 
“To associate the thought of God’s promises with the 
rainbow, and to show that his part is to bless and 
that our part is to obey,” and, “To show that the 
coming of Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise 
to Abraham’, 

One of the aims that concerns the missionary en- 
terprise might be interpreted as liberal for it suggests 
discrimination. It is, “To show the need of the world 
for the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that it is the duty 
of those who have the Gospel to send it to those who 
have never heard of Jesus; to lead children to give 
to missions intelligently and cheerfully”. In general, 
however, the traditional appeal to destroy the super- 
stitions of heathenism is not combined with any appre- 


126 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


ciation of Eastern cultures or with recognition of our 
own shortcomings. Apparently, the conception of 
medical missions as a bait for Gospel teaching has 
not been discarded. A liberal attitude on Christian 
missions can hardly be expected from children whose | 
introduction to the missionary enterprise has been 
guided by such aims as, “To show the power of the 
gospel message to meet the needs of people bound by 
the strongest superstitions”, and, ‘““To show the im- 
portance of the work of the medical missionary and 
how it opens the hearts of the people and makes 
them willing to listen to Christian teaching”’. 

The interest in helpful adjustments in social rela- 
tionships which was found in the courses for younger 
children is continued and is enlarged to include prob- 
lems of larger community welfare. Witness this aim: 
“To present an ideal of moral heroism through the 
deeds of men who worked patiently and risked their 
lives bravely for the welfare of others; to inspire the 
children with a desire to do some great work for 
humanity; to help them to see that even now there 
is something they can do to assist in guarding the 
health of the community, and to lead them to take 
advantage of such opportunities.” 

Several lessons have to do with peace, and we find 
such aims as, “To emphasize the glory and beauty 
of ‘the things which make for peace’, and to lead 
the children to act as peacemakers”, and, “To show 
that peace is always better than strife and to lead 
children to do things which make for peace”. It 
should not be assumed, however, that these lessons 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 127 


present an effort definitely to outlaw war. To the 
second aim the following explanation is carefully 
added: “The only way to get peace sometimes is to 
fight for it, for there can be no peace when an indi- 
vidual, a group, or a nation is destroying life or prop- 
erty, or infringing in other ways for selfish ends upon 
the God-given right of their neighbors”. 

The aims that concern the “temperance” question 
are very definite. The children are to be led “to 
sign a pledge against the use of alcohol and tobacco”. 
It is interesting to note the suggestion of a double 
standard of morality here. For the sake of their 
influence on boys, the girls (not the boys) are asked 
to add to their pledge, “I also promise that I will not 
include among my friends any boy who drinks intox- 
icating liquors or smokes cigarettes”. 


Courses for Older Boys and Girls 
(Grades VIII, 1X, X, XI, XII) 

With the four courses in the Intermediate Depart- 
ment has been included The World a Field of Christian 
Service, intended for boys and girls about eighteen 
years old. 

The purpose of the Intermediate courses is: 


To lead to the practical recognition of the duty and re- 
sponsibility of personal Christian living and to organize the 
conflicting impulses of life so as to develop habits of Chris- 
tian service. 


On the whole, the aims of the lessons in these 
courses interpret Christian living in terms of personal 


128 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


virtues—“loyalty”, “helpfulness”, “a forgiving spirit”, 


“confidence in God”, “faithfulness”, “self-surrender”, 
etc., etc. The virtues are taught, in most cases a 
virtue a Sunday, without much regard to the recogni- 
tion of concrete situations in which the occasions for 
their exercise is found. It is true that in the lesson 
plan, a concrete instance may be suggested as a way 
to approach the subject matter but the end in view 
is the generalized virtue. 

In the statements of aim there is a distinct empha- 
sis on the individual. The following aims illustrate 
this: ‘To show the power and influence of a hero in 
our lives’; “To show that a life dedicated to God and 
a heart filled with assurance of salvation makes a 
leader of power”; and “To present the lessons in such 
a way that such personal dedication of self to God 
may be strongly suggested to each pupil”. 

The reason for this emphasis is probably found in 
the fact that nearly all the courses are biographical, 
biography conceived in the usual narrow sense. There 
is a lack of emphasis on group standards and their 
development. 

Liberal tendencies are shown, it is true, in the large 
place given to considerations of social service. One 
entire course is given over to a discussion of voca- 
tions from the point of view of their contributions 
to society. 

In the treatment of missions, the aims include a 
desire ‘‘to inspire a sense of universal brotherhood” 
and an “attitude of sympathy to immigrants”. 

The boys and girls are expected to “take a live 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 129 


interest in the social work of the church”. A fellow- 
ship beyond denominational bounds is clearly recog- 
nized. Thus, one of the aims is, “To lead the pupil 
to see that every Christian belongs to a larger fel- 
lowship than that of his own denomination and that 
he should seek to be a factor in knitting this fellow- 
ship more closely together”. 


When it was first published, nearly twenty years 
ago, no doubt the International Graded Lessons 
marked a great advance in curriculum-making. It was 
closely graded; it used material from other sources 
than the Bible; it stressed the influence of religion for 
right social relationships. Its purposes are, however, 
quite inadequate to equip children and young people 
for the tremendous tasks which Protestant liberals 
are demanding of the Christian religion. Indeed the 
realities of the modern world—the major issues of 
our civilization—are to a large measure neglected, 
prohibition being a conspicuous exception. The policy 
of postponement is adopted. Little children are to 
live largely in an imaginary, “ideal” world. Junior 
children are expected to know the stories of the Bible, 
and to “apply Bible truths” in their own enlarging 
personal contacts; they are not led to evaluate Bib- 
lical incidents or to interpret modern social life by 
the standards of Jesus. Older boys and girls are intro- 
duced to a larger world; but here the emphasis is on 
the qualities necessary for individual consecration to 
God and on expression of this consecration in service 
to the unfortunate rather than in social justice and 


130 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


the reconstruction of society. Nowhere is there an 
effort to discover and analyze the factors in our pres- 
ent social order that deny the gospel of Jesus. There 
is no effort to enlist intelligent codperation in bring- 
ing about the actual changes necessary in order to 
transform society into the kingdom of God. 


3. Tur ScRIBNER COMPLETELY GRADED SERIES 


In the pamphlet describing the courses this state- 
ment. occurs: | 


Each lesson in the Scribner Completely Graded Series, 
from the first lesson for the five-year-old pupil through the 
senior and adult courses, has in view some well defined 
advance in the pupil’s moral and religious life. The ideal 
of creating a thoroughly socialized world is kept steadily 
m view. Beginning with the simplest acts of kindness and 
obedience in the family, it goes on to problems of school 
conduct, the relief of suffering, the spread of missions, train- 
ing in worship and training in citizenship, so that each 
pupil may learn how to live as a true member of the 
_ kingdom of God. 


The emphasis on the social nature of Christian 
experience needs no comment. Here we have an 
expression, in general terms, of course, of the pur- 
poses of liberal Christianity. 

Upon first inspection the courses making up the > 
series show a decided resemblance to those in the In- 
ternational Graded Series already reviewed. Here, as 
in the other series, little children are to be brought 
into relationship with a Heavenly Father who pro- 
vides for them and cares for them. In the Junior 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 131 


grades, the boys and girls study the Bible chrono- 
logically, with an aim for every lesson that seeks to 
apply to their needs the Scriptural passage studied. 
Courses for older boys and girls include biographical 
studies in which “the individual character receives the 
chief interest”; a study of the Biblical writers where 
the historical method is used and explained; a review 
of the entire Bible; and two courses dealing with prob- 
lems of Christian conduct, the material for study 
being drawn largely from the Bible. 

A study of the lesson aims in the various courses 
reveals distinctive features and indicates the direc- 
tion in which the progressive purposes of the series 
are expressed. These distinctive features include: 

a. The extension of the recognized scope of interests 
for little children to include personal contacts and 
problems not usually considered a part of children’s 
religious life. 

In the Beginners’ course we find such aims as: “To 
develop a sympathetic and helpful attitude toward 
little newcomers in this country”. And in the Pri- 
mary courses, ‘To help the children to think that the 
bringers of food to their homes are God’s helpers”, 
and, “To extend the thought that God the loving 
Father is helping the doctor to care for his children 
and to arouse gratitude for all those who share in 
God’s work.” In a group of lessons for six year olds, 
the children are led to consider their social relations 
to such “helpers” as the miner, the doctor, the police- 
man, the letter-carrier. 

b. Some emphasis even with young children on 


132 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


sharing the social purposes of God. ‘This is illustrated 
by the aims already mentioned and by the following: 
“To help the children to realize that the loving 
Father is working all the time to provide food for the 
needs of his children’; ‘“To show that we are working 
with the heavenly Father when we are trying to be 
peacemakers”, and, “To show the pupils that kindness 
to other persons brings us into fellowship with God”. 

c. Many indications of liberal attitudes toward 
social welfare and international relationships. 

Throughout the series there is emphasis on com- 
munity service and on high ideals of community life. 
Moreover, suggestions such as the following would 
surely lead to a reconstruction of the church’s mis- 
sionary enterprise: “Emphasize the fact that human 
nature is the same everywhere”; “This may be treated 
as a missionary lesson, showing the value of the right 
kind of missionary effort which seeks not to destroy 
but to fulfill.” The aim, “To cultivate sympathy and 
friendliness rather than prejudice toward other races 
and nations’, is typical of many lesson aims. 

d. Both tolerance and independence of thought are 
expressely sought. It is unusual to find in Sunday- 
school text-books for High School boys and girls such 
purposes as, “To cultivate intellectual self-reliance 
and independence”, and “To show that the truth 
thrives best in an atmosphere of freedom and thus 
to promote a spirit of tolerance toward those whose 
opinions differ from ours”. 

e. Young people of about sixteen are led to consider 
a variety of careers and among them marriage is 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 133 


studied “as a Christian vocation” for both men and 
women. 

f. The approach to the Bible throughout the series 
is historical and scientific. 


At the five points indicated, liberal tendencies ap- 
pear, and in these directions the Scribner Completely 
Graded Series marks an advance, from the point of 
view of liberalism, over the International Graded 
Lessons to which, in many other respects, it is similar. 
In no case, however, is a tendency developed definitely 
and in concrete detail in such a way as to bring out 
its full implications. Furthermore, there are inter- 
esting and significant omissions. For instance, little 
or no mention is made of problems concerning economic 
motives, industrial organization and conditions, polit- 
ical corruption, sex relationships. 

As an illustration of failure to recognize and meet 
actual problems even when the general policy on a 
subject is liberal, the treatment of the Bible might 
be mentioned. While the significance of the general 
liberal attitude is very important, the fact must not 
be overlooked that in only a few lessons in the entire 
series (through the High School years) is there any 
attempt to handle directly the pupils’ own critical 
problems. 

In the Junior Bible, where the material is arranged 
with careful regard to the results of criticism and 
where there is an endeavor to forestall future difficul- 
ties, it is never the direct purpose of a lesson to con- 
sider possible present difficulties. For instance, when 


134 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


the development of the early Christian community in 
Jerusalem is studied, instead of meeting questions on 
the tongues of fire and the disciples’ sudden linguistic 
ability described in the story of Pentecost, the aim is, 
“To show the pupils how to enter into fellowship 
with God and at the same time strengthen in their 
hearts the desire to enter into that fellowship”. In 
connection with the David and Gotiath incident, the 
teacher is, “To inspire the boys and girls to conquer 
their own ‘giants’, to overcome bad habits, such as 
untruthfulness, and laziness, through God’s help”. 

For the tenth grade, a course is offered on the Story 
of Our Bible. This course leads the students to study 
the history of the Biblical records, the purposes of 
the various writers and compilers, and the historical 
background of the narratives. The controlling point 
of view is clearly that of liberal Christianity. With 
this in mind, it is interesting to consider the an- 
nounced lessons aims. A surprising number of them 
are in terms that bear no direct relation to critical 
problems; such as, “To cultivate the spirit of love and 
good cheer in the face of misfortune’, and “To awaken 
in the pupils a boundless love and trust toward 
Christ, similar to the love for Him and trust in Him 
which swayed the lives of John and his fellow Chris- 
tians”. Several of them combine two objectives, as 
“To cultivate the power of seeing good rather than 
bad in one’s environment. Also to give the key to the 
true understanding of the early narratives in the Old 
Testament”. Only a few of the aims state clearly their 
purpose in terms of critical understanding, as, “To re- 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 135 


view the story of the Bible and especially the Old 
Testament, from the point of view of the growth 
of the canon and thus to show clearly the true sense 
in which the Bible is an inspired book”. 

The Life of Jesus, intended for the eleventh grade, 
endeavors to clear the way for later difficulties, not 
expected to arise at this age. Here again, the liberal 
position is not consistently maintained. In his direc- 
tions to the teacher for a very interesting lesson on 
miracles, the author contends that sixteen year old 
boys and girls have no intellectual difficulties with 
miracles. He says: 


The use of this lesson is to defend the pupils against 
future rather than present doubts. Young people of this 
age have not yet seriously faced the intellectual problem 
of miracles. All that the teacher needs to do at this period 
is to present the matter in a constructive way, and to show 
the class how they may, when they become more interested, 
face these problems without alarm and by the use of 
methods which they employ in other research. 


The religious world of to-day is seething with ques- 
tions concerning the Virgin Birth and the Resurrec- 
tion. Here, if anywhere, young people need help. But 
in this course the Virgin Birth is not taken up at all. 
When the Resurrection is studied, the teacher is told 
that, 


The mode of the resurrection is the most controverted 
topic in modern Bible study. The topic is not one con- 
cerning which pupils of the age who are studying these 
lessons feel any special curiosity. 


136 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


4. Tur CONSTRUCTIVE STUDIES 


When this series was planned, its purpose was to 
provide opportunity for thoroughly historical and 
scientific Bible study in the various grades of the 
Sunday School, day schools, and Christian Associa- 
tions. The publishers’ leaflet contains the following 
statement: 


It has been said of the “Constructive Studies” that it is 
a Biblical series. To a large extent this is true and should 
remain true until other educational agencies undertake to 
acquaint the church’s children with the great literature upon 
which Christianity is historically based. A knowledge of 
the growth of religious ideas which produced Christianity 
leads to the enrichment of the Christian life, and while one 
may improve methods of interpretation of this literature 
and plans for presenting it, it must still remain the essential 
basis of the Sunday-school curriculum. 


~The extent to which the results of scientific Bible 
study are recognized varies greatly in the different 
courses. In the kindergarten, there is no indication 
of any change from the traditional approach. Many 
stories—such as the wedding at Cana, the Garden of 
Eden, Daniel in the lions’ den—are told with ap- 
parently no attempt to deal with either present or 
future questions as to their literal accuracy or moral 
value. In the early years of the elementary school, 
there are some attempts to forestall future difficulties. 
For instance, when the creation story is told, the aim 
is, “To give the child a large though necessarily some- 
what vague idea of creation, but to impress indelibly 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 137 


the fact of God as Creator”. For the fourth grade, 
a course is suggested which introduces the Bible as a 
whole. Here the gradual development of the religious 
life of the Hebrew people is clearly pointed out, and 
discrimination is encouraged. The course for the next 
year presents a simple, straightforward life of Jesus. 
Later in the elementary school, the young students are 
helped to share in a simple way, through the study 
of single books, scholarly methods in studying the 
Bible. The aim for the First Book of Samuel is, “To 
train the pupils in the proper way of approaching and 
using a book of the Bible; in short to teach them in 
a simple and practical way the art of interpretation 
as applied to such books as those of the Bible”’. 

No attempt is made to defend the actions of people 
simply because they happen to occur in the Bible: 

Neither is it: necessary to defend the falsehoods of the 
ancient Hebrews, or to represent as model characters all 
the persons who appear in the Biblical story, simply be- 
cause they are mentioned in the Bible. 

The contrast between Christian teaching and that 
of the Mosaic law is brought to the attention of chil- 
dren in the sixth grade: 

Point out that as Christians we are under a much stricter 
law. Polygamy, divorce for trivial causes, slavery, and 
hatred of enemies were all allowed by the Mosaic code, 
whereas all these things were forbidden by Jesus as well as 
everything else that disagrees with the practice of love 
toward all mankind. 

In view of these distinctly liberal tendencies, it is 
somewhat surprising that the Resurrection is treated 


138 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


with such extreme caution in the Life of Jesus for 
Juniors: 


The object of this is to bring out the story of the resur- 
rection as clearly as may be, without attempting to explain 
what must be ever a mystery, or to determine the exact 
nature of the resurrection experiences. . 

... Owing to the complexity of the accounts, the 
teacher should present the story in some connected form 
rather than have the pupils get it for themselves. 


The problem of the Virgin Birth is not dealt with 
directly at all although the Junior life of Jesus men- 
tions Joseph as the father of Jesus, and speaks of 
“the idyllic character of these stories of the nativity”. 
The life of Jesus for students in the ninth grade dis- 
misses the problem with the following comment: 
“In the early chapters of Matthew and Luke there 
are certain difficulties which have long puzzled Chris- 
tian scholars. It does not fall within the scope and 
plan of this book to discuss these difficulties”. 

Throughout the series, there is a conspicuous lack 
of concern with evangelical doctrines. There is no 
evidence that a conversion experience or a ‘decision 
for Christ” is expected at a special time. Also, the 
absence of traditional phraseology is more noticeable 
here than in the other series reviewed. 

Objectives concerning social welfare and the recon- 
struction of society occur very seldom in courses for 
pupils below the high school. In the high school 
courses, we find a text-book on social ethics for boys, 
a course intended especially for girls in which im- 
portant social problems are considered, and a short 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 139 


course on eugenics. One of the questions introduced 
concerns the double standard of sex morality, “Is it 
right for a man to demand that his wife be purer than 
he is?” Women’s public influence is discussed, 
“through organization in clubs, churches, settlements, 
labor unions, welfare stations, playground associations, 
civic and social centers, schools, and in many places, 
the ballot.” 

Only a few references are made in the entire series 
to missions or to problems of international and inter- 
racial relations. In general, these reflect the point 
of view of liberal Christianity and are represented by 
such expressions as the following: 


A knowledge of national life and customs of the immigrant 
is, therefore, quite necessary for a just understanding of 
the real character of these strangers who come to our shores. 
Men and women everywhere have a desire for the respect 
of others whatever their nationality. They do not feel justly 
treated when they are judged by the worst characteristics 
of their race. 


It is true, however, that the pupils are never led to 
consider the facts of modern warfare. Indeed, kinder- 
garten children are expected to learn “courage toward 
their country” through the story of Gideon, and are 
taught to play the “soldier boy” game and to sing 
this song: 


Soldier boy, soldier boy, where are you going, 
Bearing so proudly the red, white and blue? 

I’m going where my country to duty is calling; 
If you’ll be a soldier boy you may go too. 


140 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


5. Tur Bracon Course oF GRADED LESSONS 


The aim of this series is expressed in terms of 
social purpose, as follows: 


The Beacon Course in Religious Education has for its 
controlling purpose the promotion of the truly religious life. 
If, as a result of its use, there shall be a larger number of 
men and women in the world who are living purely, hon- 
orably, and reverently, and who are really helping to bring 
in the Kingdom of God, the Course will have accomplished 
the end most desired by those responsible for its inception 
and development. 


In this series there is included as material for re- 
ligious education a much larger range of interests 
than in any of the other series examined. The ob- 
jectives, even for children below high school, include 
a recognition of wide gocial relationships and an 
appreciation of the religious contributions of men 
of science, industrial workers, great men of various 
religious faiths, leaders in social reform. The Bib- 
lical material usually studied is not omitted, but it 
is taken up in less detail than in the other series. 
In the other series it is often true that the same Bib- 
lical incident appears again and again, whereas in this 
series there is relatively little repetition of subject 
matter. 

Through the third grade the courses are made up 
largely of legendary stories intended to furnish in- 
struction and to present ideals for the child’s guidance 
in his immediate relationships. Very few realistic 
stories are used. When the material is drawn from the 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 141 


Old Testament there appears to be little variation 
from the traditional treatment. For instance, the 
story of the child Samuel is told to show “how a little 
child serving God faithfully, may hear the divine 
voice”, and Joseph’s going out to seek his brothers is 
expected to teach unquestioned obedience. In using 
stories from the New Testament, care seems to have 
been taken to avoid future difficulties. When the story 
of the annunciation is told, it is suggested that Mary 
had a dream in which a beautiful vision came to her. 
The resurrection story is to be told at Easter time “as 
a parable’. Mary Magdalene is said to have had a 
vision of Jesus. ‘Then’, the story goes on, ‘‘Mary 
felt that Jesus was not dead—that he had given up 
his life with them only to enter upon a better one”. 

This approach for little children to much discussed 
portions of the New Testament record is unusual. So 
also is the consistent emphasis on skill in social rela- 
tionships, on learning to codperate, characteristic of 
the text-book, Living Together, tended for children 
in the second grade. 

Distinctive features of the Beacon Course are con- 
spicuous in the books for the Junior grades. The 
course for the fourth grade, God’s Wonder World, 
deals with “the religious aspect of nature and of 
social relations” and includes a brief survey of the 
long evolution of physical life. Man’s progress is dis- 
cussed, with chapters on printing, steam, electricity. 
All this to be considered lesson material for the 
religious education of nine year olds! The course for 
the fifth grade, not yet in print, is an introduction 


142 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


to the entire Bible, a study of “how the Bible came 
to be written, and how it has come down to us”. In 
the sixth grade, the course is on Heroic Lives, and in 
the heroic company we find Moses and David, Zo- 
roaster, Mohammed, Buddha, Jesus, Socrates, Paul, 
Martin Luther, Dorothea Dix, Dr. Walter Reed, and 
Alice Freeman Palmer. The course ends with a section 
on “Heralds of Universal Religion” in which are 
included representatives of the Brahma Somaj in 
India, Bahaism in Persia, and the Unitarian movement 
in America. - 

For the eighth grade this series provides a life of 
Jesus which attempts to encourage appreciation of 
his life and teaching and at the same time to avoid 
doctrinal emphases and historical misconceptions. It 
is worth while to note the treatment of the birth 
stories and of the Resurrection. 

The aim of one of the lessons taking up the stories 
of the birth of Jesus is—“To furnish a basis of knowl- 
edge about them which will enable the pupils to under- 
stand their origin at the very same time when they 
are learning to love them”. And in her introduction 
to this section the author says: 


The four lessons of this chapter deal with the beautiful 
stories which were told concerning the birth of Jesus and 
John the Baptist after both had become famous men. 
Every great religion has similar legends about its leaders, 
as we shall see. The poetry and symbolism of our gospel 
narratives 1s woven into the celebration of Christmas day. 
Their beauty and charm are part of our great religious 
heritage which we may enjoy the more because we know 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 143 


them to be poems, born out of the wonder and awe and 
love of devoted human hearts. 


The author further speaks of the accounts of the 
Resurrection as “stories which contradict each other 
at many points, which present angels and apparitions 
of dead bodies, so that we know they cannot be 
history”. ; 


These stories are the efforts made by sincere people in 
a credulous age, when miracles were readily accepted, to 
explain their faith in immortality and their confidence in 
the spiritual kingdom for which they labored. 

. . . Our Easter faith, then, rests on the conviction that 
the spirit of Jesus was too worthy to perish, that his in- 
fluence is deathless; that the Christ spirit in the human 
heart is an abiding reality; and that in the same way that 
his spirit is alive, we shall live also. 


A liberal point of view in regard to traditional doc- 
trines that have grown up about the person of Jesus 
is further evident from the following quotation: 


Jesus lived his gospel, and showed the world how com- 
pletely the divine life may be revealed in a human life. 
What he was, therefore, has had a vast influence on his 
followers. In no one point is there so great divergence 
among the churches which accept his teachings, as on this 
concerning the nature of Jesus and the meaning of his 
death. 

The essential thing to remember about this divergence is 
that opinion or belief about Jesus is not what makes a 
Christian or a member of the Kingdom of God. The 
teaching of Jesus and the spirit which he manifested (we 
have come to call it the Christian spirit) together constitute 


144 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


the religion of Jesus; and they are truly his followers who 
have in their hearts the spirit of love, which is the spirit 
of God, as he had it, and let that love influence all their 
actions and their thoughts. 


There are two text-books already prepared for high 
school students—a course on the apostolic church and 
a course entitled Our Part in the World in which a 
wide range of problems is discussed, problems of na- 
tional and international citizenship, social institutions, 
public hygiene, and the like. In this course are such 
questions as “Is war ever right? Do we want a mar- 
tial type of character? Do you believe in the say- 
ing, ‘My country, right or wrong’? ‘Might makes 
right’; is this ever true?” 


6. Tue Curistrian Nurture SERIES 


The purpose of this series is given as “development 
of loyalty to the Church; a fostering of inner, spir- 
itual life; and constant practice in helpfulness.” 

Active interest in social welfare is one of the out- 
standing features of the Christian Nurture Series. It 
is at this point that we find the only clear indication 
of liberalism in the entire series. Suggestions for acts 
of helpfulness are made for nearly every lesson in all 
the courses, various lessons take up the lives of social 
reformers, and, in the high school, an entire year is 
spent in the discussion of social problems. The aim of 
the high school course is to look at the pupils’ own 
community as Jesus would see it, to learn “what we 
can do to further the things which He would approve, 
and how we can get rid of the things He would de- 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 145 


plore”. In no other series is there so definite and 
practical a course in community service for high school 
students. 

There is less emphasis on knowledge of the Bible 
in this series than in any of the other series we have 
examined thus far, although one scholarly text-book 
on the entire Bible is provided,—for the tenth grade. 
While the point of view varies in the other books, on 
the whole, the traditional attitude is maintained. We 
find such lesson aims as, “To show God’s loving care 
of Noah”, and, ‘To appreciate the birth of Christ as 
being a new beginning of Life by miraculous ‘Birth 
from Above’ as well as a consummation of all pre- 
ceding evolution”’. 

Throughout all the courses the Christian Nurture 
Series throws great emphasis on the church and on 
traditional Christian doctrines. 

Except for an occasional lesson on church going and 
rather infrequent references to the work of the church 
and to fellowship among different denominations, the 
other series are inclined to neglect the subject of the 
church entirely. Not so here. In this series, the 
church is referred to again and again, and is in many 
cases the center of whole groups of lessons. Appar- 
ently the objects sought, are knowledge of church doc- 
trines and participation in the worship and organized 
life of the church. There are no traces whatsoever 
of liberal tendencies in regard to the church, no at- 
tempt to evaluate the historic institution in terms of 
the world’s need, no effort to encourage initiative and 
experiment. The emphasis.is on conservation and 


146 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


conformity, not upon advance. “Loyal compliance 
with the institutional customs of the Church” is men- 
tioned as one of the aims of the entire series. Some 
of the aims for separate lessons are: “To suggest that 
the Church is God’s home”; “To point out that before 
there were any churches or parishes, the apostles and 
disciples were obedient and loyal to Jesus Christ in 
doing exactly what He told them to do, and that we 
can be loyal and obedient to Him by being loyal to 
the Church and doing His work in it”; ‘To help the 
class [nine years old] to understand that the Holy 
Catholic Church is for all people, at all times, in all 
places”. 

Bound up with insistence on the importance of the 
church found in this series is the emphasis on doc- 
trine. One year of the high school is given over to 
rather elaborate discussions of the articles of the 
Apostles Creed, the stated aim for the course making 
the extraordinary announcement that science must 
be interpreted by theology. This is what we find: 


This course aims to show to the pupil of High School age 
that religion is essential to the interpretation of all other 
facts, and that knowledge of the scientific truths which are 
being taught him is not the Truth until the explanation is 
provided for them by a sane and simple theology. 


Among the lesson aims are these: ‘To show the power 
of a creed held not only by the mind but by the 
heart and will”; “To get clear of childish conceptions 
of the Trinity and to provide at least a clue for 
thought, notwithstanding its awesome mystery”. 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 147 


That younger children are taught to take certain 
definite attitudes toward matters of doctrinal belief is 
clear from such aims as the following, found in ele- 
mentary courses: “To help the children to under- 
stand that Baptism is necessary to all people’; “To 
show that the Creed is the foundation of the 
Church”. 

Concern for better international relationships ex- 
presses itself chiefly in the purpose of establishing the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in different parts of the 
world. Characteristic aims are: ‘To show the class 
how men are willing to undertake the greatest hard- 
ships to carry the Church wherever the flag flies”; “To 
show why the Church is needed in China”; “To show 
the class their individual responsibility in sending the 
power of the Church to South America”. 

Military metaphors are used very frequently, many 
of them referring directly or indirectly to the baptis- 
mal formula where the priest says: 


We receive this Child into the congregation of Christ’s 
flock; and do sign him with the sign of the Cross in token 
that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith 
of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner, 
against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue Christ’s 
faithful soldier and servant unto his life’s end. 


In many of the courses the children are reminded of 
the experience of their baptism and are encouraged 
to be good soldiers of Christ. Conquests of the church 
are mentioned without criticism. Nowhere is there 
an attempt to evaluate war as a method for settling 
disputes. 


148 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


7. Tue ABINGDON Weprk-Day Texts IN RELIGION 


Limitations of space allow only a brief mention 
of some of the outstanding features of this series. 

The volumes for younger children do not differ 
essentially in point of view from the majority of text 
books for younger children in the other series exam- 
ined. They seek to develop general attitudes of trust, 
obedience, kindness, and the exercise of these attitudes 
in the children’s immediate surroundings. Biblical ma- 
terial is used—quite uncritically—as well as stories 
from other sources. The one striking feature of these 
books for Primary children is that a larger number 
of realistic stories of modern life are included than 
is customary. This may be the beginning of a signif- 
icant change. 

For older boys and girls, books on the Bible are 
provided, emphasizing historical and geographical 
background and utilizing results of research. A book 
on the history of the church prepared for the tenth 
grade marks a new departure in curriculum material 
for high school students. 

While the general attitude toward the Bible is both 
scholarly and ethical, no preparation for the teacher 
is suggested to help him meet problems concerning 
the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the descent of the 
Holy Spirit, although the traditional accounts of these 
phenomena appear in several courses. These and 
other records of the miraculous are not emphasized; 
neither are they discussed and explanations sought. 

An unusual number of courses deal with problems 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 149 


of individual and social standards. While the ten- 
dency seems to be toward discussions of generalized 
qualities—desirable qualities for leadership, friend- 
ship, etc—and while there is little attention given to 
actual conditions and problems, occasionally present 
social issues are directly discussed. For instance, in 
one of the high school courses, Jesus’ Ideals of Liv- 
ang, the following questions are suggested for class 
discussion: “Do you think that public or private 
schools give a larger opportunity for broad friend- 
ship?”; “Who is responsible for our lynching in the 
South and elsewhere?”; “What is the true Christian 
ideal of property ownership?” 

Some attention is given to problems of citizenship. 
The importance of voting wisely is stressed, as well 
as the importance of obeying the laws of the com- 
munity. On one occasion, America is condemned for 
injustice to the Indians. It seems to be true, how- 
ever, that in general the series tends to magnify na- 
tionalist sentiments. Such statements are found as 
this: 

The more we think about “America the Beautiful” the 
more we realize that we have established on this Western 
continent something unique which other nations have copied 
and which more and more will become the ideal of the 
world. 


There are no suggestions in any of the courses for 
the abolishing of war. In Jesus’ Ideals of Living, the 
Great War is very definitely justified, our late enemies 
are spoken of as “immune to kindness and all other 
ideals”, and it is said that war may be “conducted 


150 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


absolutely in the spirit of the Prince of Peace”. No 
opposition to this point of view is expressed in any 
of the other text-books. 


8. Tue Pirncrrim PuAN Books ror WEEK-DAY 
Reuicgious EpuCcATION 


Five books have been published in this series, four 
for children in the primary department, and one for 
Junior children. They are made up of stories, songs, 
games, suggestions for hand work, short plays, and 
plans for service activities. 

The general purpose of all the books is much the 
same. For the Mayflower Program Books it is stated 
as follows: 


To develop in children of Primary age appreciation of 
all people near and far who contribute to their happiness 
and a spirit of comradeship and sympathetic helpfulness 
for any less favored; to provide practice in service. 


And for the Juniors: 


The purpose of the Junior Citizen is to develop an atti- 
tude of helpfulness toward all people in all lands. It aims 
to train girls and boys to be good citizens and friendly 
neighbors in the community, our country, and the world. 


These are missionary courses if missionary educa- 
tion can be defined as growth in fellowship and under- 
standing between people of different environments. No 
doubt they would tend in the direction of abolishing 
war although the problem of what to do in the case 
of international disputes is never actually raised. 

The books do not give information about the Bible 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 151 


nor develop attitudes toward it; only a very few Bible 
stories are told. Nor are the pupils encouraged to 
visualize in any adequate fashion the industrial sys- 
tem of the present day with its many serious problems. 
Upon the issues treated, however, the purposes are 
distinctly in accord with the demands of liberal 
Christianity. 


SUMMARY 


A brief comparative survey of these eight series 
reviewed gives us a picture of the present situation 
in curriculum objectives for Protestant religious edu- 
cation. Conspicuous in the situation are the following 
elements: 

(1) Only a limited use is made of the results of 
Biblical research. In courses for little children the 
traditional approach is only slightly modified. For 
Junior children we find a wide variation, all the way 
from a purely traditional treatment (as in the Inter- 
national Group-Uniform Series) to an attempt (in the 
book studies in the Constructive Studies) to give prac- 
tice in the use of the historical method. Nearly all 
the series include a course on the structure and history 
of the Bible. No one of them—with the single excep- 
tion of the Beacon course——deals critically with the 
two most generally discussed problems in the use 
of the New Testament, the Virgin Birth and the 
Resurrection. 

(2) The Christian Nurture Series stands alone in 
its emphasis on formulas of belief. Absence of 
attention to traditional Christian doctrines is an out- 


152 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


standing feature of all the other series although 
phraseology usually associated with doctrinal con- 
formity appears rather frequently in the two Inter- 
national series. 

It is interesting to compare at this point the atti- 
tude expressed in curriculum objectives with the pur- 
poses of interdenominational organizations for relig- 
ious education reviewed in the last chapter, where 
the outstanding attitude toward doctrine was found to 
be positively conservative. The following considera- 
tions suggest themselves in this regard: (a) Do leaders 
expect to teach doctrine outside of the curriculum, 
through revivals, confirmation classes, “personal 
work”, etc? (b) How will children in whose education 
a study of Protestant doctrine has been neglected be 
equipped to deal with the doctrinal problems now 
prominent in all the churches? 

(3) All the series emphasize social work. They all 
include lives of leaders in social service. Several of 
them have vocational courses, and one series offers 
a course on community problems. In general, how- 
ever, they emphasize relief rather than the analysis 
and reform of definite social abuses. Prohibition is a 
notable exception. 

(4) Internationalism expresses itself chiefly m a 
desire for the spread of Christian missions—an objec- 
tive in which nearly all the series share. Several of 
the series seek to encourage a fraternal rather than a 
benevolent attitude toward the population of the 
“mission fields”; but nowhere is there a realistic treat- 
ment of the facts of the missionary enterprise. 


CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES 153 


Religions other than the Christian religion are sympa- 
thetically treated in only one series. Present 
international problems of imperialistic aggression, 
overpopulation, political dictatorship, etc. are rarely 
touched upon. Any hint of protest against war is 
found in only one course among all of those studied— 
approximately ninety in all! 

(5) One set of courses, the Christian Nurture 
Series, centers itself around a study of the church— 
conceived of in rather mediwval fashion. For the 
most part the other series neglect the church, referring 
only occasionally and incidentally to its work. If the 
church is to become a useful agency for reconstruc- 
tion—and liberals are convinced that this is its func- 
tion—must not children participate heartily in an 
examination of its history and present status? 

(6) In conclusion we repeat that the outstanding 
umpression resulting from a study of curriculum objec- 
tives concerns the number and significance of their 
omissions. ‘They pass over very briefly, postpone, or 
neglect entirely to consider many of the most insis- 
tent demands of liberal Christianity. Some of these 
have been mentioned. Others concern the ethics of 
politics, forms of social organization, industrial con- 
ditions, the status of women. If the purposes of cur- 
riculum material are to represent the points of view 
of liberal Christianity, the following limitations must 
be recognized and remedied: (a) The restricted area 
for which curriculum objectives are at present con- 
ceived; (b) hesitancy to assume a realistic attitude 
toward the world (especially in the case of material 


154 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


for younger children); (c) the policy of postponement 
by which problems of Biblical interpretation and social 
reconstruction with which children are immediately 
concerned are not directly attacked but are post- 
poned until it is presumably “safer” to deal with 
them. 


CHAPTER VII 


THe CompreTeNncy oF ReE.Licious WoRKERS TO 
DEAL WITH THE OBJECTIVES OF LIBERAL 
CHRISTIANITY 


To a very large extent the success of organizations 
for religious education and the effectiveness of cur- 
riculum material depend upon the workers who are 
in first-hand contact with the children and young 
people of this generation. It is, therefore, essential 
that some effort should be made to discover whether 
our Protestant religious workers are prepared to deal 
with the facts and standards involved in the liberal 
movement. Do they know the already established 
facts in regard to the Bible, the Christian church, 
the structure of society,—facts upon which any recon- 
struction of religious education must be based? What 
are their attitudes toward social issues with which 
liberal Christianity is concerned? We need to know, 
not simply to guess, the information and attitudes of 
religious workers on such matters as: the use of the 
Bible in modern life, facts about the life of Jesus, 
the importance of religious dogmas, standards of sex 
relationship, war and peace, the organization and 
control of industry, property ownership, freedom of 
speech. 

155 


156 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


An investigation of the sort required is not alto- 
gether easy to make. Religious workers are busy 
people and proverbially slow about answering their 
mail; many of them resent questionnaires; a consid- 
erable number of them hesitate to put themselves on 
record upon contested points. It was found possible, 
however, to interest various groups of workers, drawn 
from all parts of the United States, in a series of 
statements, each of which they were asked to consider 
and to mark True or False. A list of one hundred 
such statements was constructed on the basis of (1) 
a study of recent religious literature, (2) a prelimi- 
nary try-out with about seventy-five liberal ministers, 
and (3) conference with a small group of advanced 
students in religious education. Later, several of the 
statements were found to be vague or ambiguous, and 
eight of them were disregarded in the scoring of re- 
turns. The ninety-two statements on which we have 
opinions were divided into four groups of twenty-three 
statements each. Twenty-three of these statements 
were concerned with the Old Testament;? twenty- 
three with the New Testament; twenty-three with the 
nature and purpose of the Christian religion; and - 
twenty-three with matters of social ethics. Arranged 
in the chance order in which they were used, the state- 
ments were as follows: ? 


In the Old Testament group were included a few general 
statements on the Bible. 


7A large number of these statements call for sheer knowl- 
edge, not opinion, but it is knowledge which liberals empha- 
size. The only knowledge test in religious education that is 
in any degree standardized is Professor M. T. Whitley’s 


COMPETENCY OF RELIGIOUS WORKERS 157 


1. The expectation of Christ’s speedy return dominated 
the lives of the early Christians. , 

2. It is the business of the Christian Church to take an 
active part in social reforms. 

3. The book of Isaiah contains writings from at least two 
different authors. 

4. The Ten Commandments present the whole duty of 
man. 

5. John, the son of Zebedee, was the writer of the Fourth 
Gospel. 

6. A Christian is well defined as a person who believes in 
Jesus Christ as God and Saviour. 

7. All Jews will try to get the best of a bargain even if 
they have to cheat to do it. 

8. Baptism was instituted by Jesus. 

9. The Church is Christian only in so far as it seeks 
actually to live out the belief that God is our father 
and that all men are brothers. 

10. The Apostles Creed is found in the Book of Acts of 
the Apostles. 

11. It is a misfortune for any cultivated young woman to 
have to earn her own living. 


Biblical Knowledge Test on the Old Testament (Series A), 
and it may be questioned whether her test measures knowl- 
edge of the Old Testament that is important from the stand- 
point of liberal Christianity. A comparison of scores made by 
a group in her test and their scores in the Old Testament 
portion of the set of statements given here (where 20 out of 
the 23 statements were items of information and the other 
three concerned points of view based on ascertainable data) 
yields a small negative correlation. The coefficient is —.069. 
This would indicate the necessity of constructing a test other 
than Professor Whitley’s to measure the Biblical information 
that is important for liberalism. 


158 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


12. 


16. 


Wik 


18. 


19. 


20. 


21. 


At the heart of Jesus’ teaching was his desire for an 
ideal community based upon justice and good 
will. 


. The essential duty of society towards one who has been 


justly convicted of crime is to see that he suffers for 
his wrongdoing. 


. All the Bibie writers believed in immortality. 
. Although some persons take advantage of our industrial 


system to gain unworthy ends, at bottom our industry 
is organized on a fundamentally Christian basis. 

Christianity must remain forever hostile to any form 
of science which tends to destroy accepted dogmas of 
the faith. 

The development of the Christian celebration of the 
Lord’s Supper was influenced by the custom of the 
Mystery Religions. 

We must never expect to find anything good in non- 
Christian religions. 

The way in which work is carried on in most of our 
large industrial plants tends to destroy freedom and 
Initiative on the part of the large majority of 
workers. 

Jesus’ teaching endangered the established society of 
his time. 

In order to protect the future of the race the law must 
demand a higher standard of sex morality from 
women than from men. 


. If the Christian religion is to be permanent, it must have 


capacity for perpetual development. 


. Faithful prayer has the power to alter natural laws. 
. The Christian Church should seek to abolish all public 


Sunday recreation. 


. The New ‘Testament was originally written in 


Hebrew. 


COMPETENCY OF RELIGIOUS WORKERS 159 


26. 


27. 


28. 


29. 


30. 


dl, 


32. 


30. 
34. 


30. 


36. 


37. 


38. 


39. 
40. 


In the time of Jesus, Palestine was a thoroughfare be- 
tween commercial centers. 

There are different conceptions of the Resurrection of 
Jesus among the New Testament writers. 

Helping a fellow student in a written test so that he may 
remain in college and play on the football team shows 
loyalty to the college. 

It is more important for a young man who wants to be 
a Christian to “play fair” in a game of baseball on 
Saturday than it is for him to give up playing base- 
ball on Sundays. 

Although it is wrong to deceive good people, in dealing 
with liars one is sometimes justified in using their 
methods. 

If an able-bodied person does not earn sufficient wages 
to support himself in decency, no one is to blame but 
himself. 

Only an unbeliever questions whether the miracles of 
Jesus happened just as they are recorded. 

St. Mark was the earliest of the four Gospels. 

The account of the raising of Lazarus appears only in 
the Gospel of John. 

For Jesus the main test of discipleship lay in belief in 
his miracles. 

Children are able to help in the making of important 
family decisions. 

Some women, whose husbands are able to support them, 
are nevertheless justified in holding regular paid 
positions. 

The conception of God remains unchanged throughout 
the Bible. 

Education is the imparting of knowledge. 

The Old Testament story of the Garden of Eden was 
derived from a tradition common to several Semitic 
peoples. 


160 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


41. 


42. 


43. 


44. 


45. 


46. 


47. 


48. 


49, 


50. 


51. 


The Gospel of John was written after the Acts of the 
Apostles. 

Any true Christian who is asked for money by a 
crippled beggar in the street gives him at least a 
little. 

What a person eats or drinks is nobody’s business but 
his own. 

When the Hebrews conquered Canaan, they adopted 
some of the Canaanite holy places and forms of 
worship. 

The God of Israel was first thought of as a tribal 
deity. 

Fellowship among Christians should be based upon 
agreement in doctrinal statements. 

It is a religious duty to learn the laws of health and to 
apply them. 

When war is declared the churches should be at least 
as ready as other community forces to rally to the 
support of the government. 

Any hope for the progress of civilization in the Western 
world rests upon some form of international co- 
operation in which all nations have a share. 

It is impossible for a man to have a normal religious life 
if he works twelve hours a day in a factory. 

The account of Moses’ hearing God speak from the 
midst of a thorn bush reflects the primitive idea that 
deities resided in certain trees. 


. It 1s worse for a rich man to sell worthless stock than 


it is for a hungry man to steal a loaf of bread. 


. A democratic political system requires for its success a 


democratic economic system. 


.In the King James’ version the books of the 


Bible are arranged in the order in which they were 
written. 


COMPETENCY OF RELIGIOUS WORKERS 161 


55. 


56. 
57. 


58. 


9. 


60. 


61. 


62. 


63. 


64. 


65. 


66. 


67. 


68. 


69. 


70. 


The Maccabees were the leaders of a revolt against 
Christianity in the first century after Christ. 

Protestants and Catholics have nothing in common. 

The first chapter of Genesis gives the true history of 
creation. 

The Apostolic Church was much influenced by Greek 
thought. 

Children five or six years old are capable of a Christian 
experience of God. 

The conquest of Canaan by the Israelites was gradual, 
following upon its settlement. 

While intelligent Christians will welcome Jews who may 
care to join the Christian Church, they will regard 
with equal respect and good will those who choose 
to remain faithful to Judaism. 

The Song of Deborah is one of the oldest portions of 
Hebrew literature. 

Man is by nature neither wholly good nor wholly 
bad. 

God expresses himself in and through our own human 
relationships. 

The real supremacy of Jesus is found in the kind of 
life he lived rather than in the manner of his 
birth. 

Jesus had to die in order to satisfy divine justice. 

The highest form of prayer is that in which we forget 
all human relationships and are alone with God. 

The majority of school histories of the United States 
need to be rewritten, with less emphasis on war and 
more emphasis on scientific and industrial life. 

The first five books of the Old Testament present a 
combination of accounts from different sources. 

A Christian is a person who knows his Bible and goes 
to Church regularly. 


162 
ret 


72. 


73. 


74, 


75. 


76. 


v7; 


78. 


79. 


80. 


81. 


82. 


83. 


84. 


LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


Paul makes frequent reference in his writings to the 
miracles which Jesus performed. 

The political administration of Solomon was distin- 
guished for its justice and mercy. 

The control of black and yellow races by white races is 
justified by the inherent superiority of the whites. 

The Gospel accounts of the birth of Christ contain 
legendary material. 

If a student is trained to be more accurate in mathe- 
matics he will be more accurate also in weighing 
political issues. 

A true Christian will never seek to compare the Bible 
with other books. 

It is clear that some of the prophetic passages in the 
Book of Revelation referred to events happening in 
our own day. 

All of the four Gospels were written within fifty years 
after Jesus’ death. 

One of the aims of Christian missions should be the 
development of native churches which can dispense 
with all foreign control. 

The organization of the churches must be changed 
before they can effectively illustrate in their corporate 
life the social ideals which they proclaim. 

The Hebrews were fulfilling the will of God when they 
destroyed the inhabitants of Jericho. 

Moses wrote the Pentateuch (i.e., the first five books of 
the Old Testament). 

The Bible accepted by the Roman Catholic Church 
contains certain books not included in Protestant 
Bibles. 

When on the day of Pentecost the disciples “spoke 
with tongues”, in reality they spoke in different 
languages. 


COMPETENCY OF RELIGIOUS WORKERS 163 


85. In America every boy of unusual intelligence has a 
chance to become a prominent citizen. 

86. When the very life of the nation is threatened, the 
conscience of an individual should conform to the 
necessities of national defense. 

87. Nearly all the Psalms were written by David at different 
times in his life. 

88. Although the Hebrew legend tells us that the Ten Com- 
mandments were miraculously given to Moses on 
Mt. Sinai, in reality they represent a stage in the 
development of Jewish moral law. 

89. The main interest of the prophets was in foretelling 
miraculously events which other people could not 
know about. ! 

90. The miraculous element in some of the Biblical stories 
was due to a tendency to glorify popular heroes by 
attributing to them superhuman powers. 

91. School teachers should be prevented by law from ex- 
pressing opinions which in any way criticize present 
social or political affairs. 

92. Christianity must be at variance with a civilization in 
which two per cent of the people own sixty per cent 
of the property. 


Answers were scored from the liberal point of view, 
the “right” opinion being determined by a consensus 
of the groups codperating in preparing the test. In 
scoring, the usual practice was followed of subtracting 
the number of wrong answers from the number of 
right answers.? 


*¥For a discussion of the construction of a true-false test 
see William McCall, How to Measure in Education, pp. 123- 
133. 


164 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


Although in some cases groups were reached by 
mail, in general it was found to be most feasible to 
give the test to religious workers assembled in train- 
ing schools or summer conferences. Reports were ob- 
tained from workers in the following groups; unless 
mention is made to the contrary, approximately the 
entire membership of each group reported. 


Group A— 57 reporting—Members of two summer confer- 
ences for church workers.‘ 


Group B— 26 “« —Students in a denominational 
training school. 

Group C— 53 “ _—Students taking religious educa- 
tion in a university summer 
school. 

Group D— 28 « _—Students in a course in the 


summer school of the Young 
Women’s Christian Association. 

Group E— 37 “ —Recent graduates of a denomi- 
national training school for 
church workers.” 


Group F— 61 “‘  —Students in a course in religious 
education in a theological 
seminary. 


Group G— 14 “« —The student body of a small 
divinity school. 

Group H—109 “« —tudents in three courses in re- 
ligious education in a profes- 
sional school of graduate rank. 


*Parts of two classes in two conferences. 

"Of the 42 women graduated in the last 6 years, 37 re- 
ported. This is the same training school in which Group B 
are students. 


COMPETENCY OF RELIGIOUS WORKERS 165 


Group I— 24 reporting—Members of the council of a 
Christian organization — The 
Fellowship of Reconciliation.’ 

Group J— 42 ““ _—Members of a graduate class in 
religious education at the end 
of a year of specialized study. 

Group K—114 “«  —MDiscellaneous. Here are grouped 
together single papers and re- 
turns from small groups of 
Sunday School teachers and 
other religious workers. 

Total number reporting—565. 


All the students in these groups were practical 
workers in the field of religious education. For the 
purpose of comparison, the test was also given to 108 
undergraduates in an eastern college all of whom had 
had some special training in Biblical history. Their 
scores are included with the report of the other 
groups in the distribution table on page 166. 

All the groups used for this study were under more 
or less progressive influences. This fact should be 
remembered in estimating the results. These are pro- 
gressive people, probably among the ablest and best 
informed of the younger religious workers in America. 

Several points in these general scores are worthy 
of note: 

(1) The facts essential to liberal Christianity and 
the attitudes characteristic of liberalism are not uni- 
versally possessed by Protestant religious workers. 
They cannot be taken for granted. The median score 


°Twenty-four out of the 30 members reported. 


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COMPETENCY OF RELIGIOUS WORKERS 167 


of the 565 workers tested is 59.8. Letting the median 
represent the group, we can say that approximately 
16 out of the 92 statements were answered “incor- 
rectly” from the liberal point of view by the entire 
number of workers tested. In the case of Group A, 
members of summer conferences for church workers, 
approximately 31 of the 92 answers were incorrect— 
over one-third. 

(2) The wide differences between groups and 
within the membership of a given group should lead 
us to be very cautious in assuming that there is any 
uniformity of opinion among religious workers upon 
these matters. It also suggests difficulties of practical 
adjustments between individuals and groups. Dia- 
gram A (page 168) shows a striking comparison of 
three curves—the curve representing the entire group 
tested and the curves of Group A and Group J, the 
two groups having the lowest and highest scores re- 
spectively. Note also the wide scattering of the scores 
of Groups B, C, E and H shown in the distribution 
table. 

(3) Apparently specialized training is an impor- 
tant factor. Group J, a graduate class with specialized 
training in religious education, has the highest median 
of the groups tested. 

(4) On the other hand, nearly as high a median is 
found in the case of Group I, the council of a radical 
religious organization, most of whom had no special- 
ized training in religious education. Probably other 
selective factors are at work here. At any rate, it 
looks as if the possession of liberal information and 


168 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


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upon taking special courses. 


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COMPETENCY OF RELIGIOUS WORKERS 173 


prepared to meet present religious issues from the 
point of view of liberal Christianity. 

The returns, classified under the four subheadings 
into which the list of statements was divided, appear 
in the distribution tables on pages 169 to 172. 

A study of the classified scores suggests these 
conclusions: 

(1) Liberalism in one set of statements does not 
guarantee a similar degree of liberalism in the other 
divisions. There is great variety in the curves. 
Group A is more liberal on social questions than upon 
the New Testament. Group E is more liberal on 
the Old Testament than on the New Testament. 
Group C is more liberal on Christianity and the 
Church than on the Old Testament. And Group G is 
distinctly more liberal on Social Ethics than in the 
interpretation of Christianity and the Church. All 
this is illustrated in Diagram B (page 174). 

(2) In general, the workers tested are less well 
equipped upon the New Testament questions here used 
than upon the other sets of questions.’ 

What is the meaning of this relative ignorance and 
conservatism upon matters concerning the New Tes- 
tament? Are the results of scientific research less 
available here than in the case of the Old Testament 
(as, for example, on Question 5, John the son of Zeb- 
edee was the writer of the Fourth Gospel)? Is public 
opinion in the churches against considering the New 

™Tt is not claimed that the questions are of equal difficulty. 
This is not necessary in order to get an unambiguous picture 
of the situation. 











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174 


COMPETENCY OF RELIGIOUS WORKERS 175 


Testament with the same open-mindedness with which 
the Old Testament is approached? (e.g., Question 74, 
The Gospel accounts of the birth of Christ contain 
legendary material). Have doctrinal teachings based 
on certain assumptions concerning the New Testament 
established such fixed mental habits as to inhibit free 
inquiry? (e.g., Question 6. Baptism was instituted 
by Jesus). Is there some relation between these low 
scores on the New Testament and the fact brought out 
in the preceding chapter that most text-books for 
church schools avoid a direct approach to controversial 
questions in which the New Testament is involved? 

(3) Unlike most of the groups, Groups F and G, 
students in two theological seminaries, are more liberal 
on the Old Testament and the New Testament than 
upon questions concerning either the functions of 
Christianity or social problems. In view of these 
scores, one is justified in seeking an explanation for 
the apparent fact that these groups are in a more 
liberal educational environment where the Bible is 
concerned than in regard to other important elements 
of liberal Christianity. It would be interesting to 
discover whether this condition is general in progres- 
sive seminaries. 

A study of the opinions held by the various groups 
on a few of the single statements among the ninety- 
two presented reveals certain general tendencies as 
well as significant differences between groups. 

Do these groups accept literally the Old Testament 
story of creation? Their positions on this point will 
indicate at least to some degree whether or not in their 


176 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


teaching of the Bible they are making use of widely 
known results of scientific research. Statement 57, 
The first chapter of Genesis gives the true history of 
creation, was marked True by 


33.3% of Group A 
154% “ Site rs 
39.6% “ a © 
25.0% “ec “ce D 
18.5% “ SDE int 
13.1% “ pee Ny 
14.3% ce if¢ G 
119% “ SR eL 
8.3% ce a4 I 
48% ce ce Af 


Obviously, the traditional, unscientific position is still 
held by many religious workers, even those under 
progressive influences. More than a third of the 
students taking religious education in a university 
summer school (Group C) fail to question the histor- 
ical accuracy of this ancient myth. 

Essential to the liberal point of view on the Bible 
is the conviction that it represents a progressive rev- 
elation of the nature of God. This issue is funda- 
mental in determining treatment of Biblical material. 
Statement No. 42 reads The conception of God remains 
unchanged throughout the Bible. This statement was 
challenged, that is, it was marked False, by most— 
though not by all—of the religious workers tested. 

63.2% of Group A marked it False 


88.5% cc (79 B 
ss6m% “§  * C 


COMPETENCY OF RELIGIOUS WORKERS 177 
92.9% of Group D 


97.3% E 
984% &§ * F 
1.0% 4) 8 OG 
973% “ “ HF 
100.0% “ “ I 
100.0% “ “ J 


From a liberal point of view these results are dis- 
tinctly encouraging. Although the amount of igno- 
rance in Group A is striking, we can expect that on 
the whole these workers will discriminate in their 
handling of the various and sometimes conflicting ideas 
of God found in the Bible. 

Do Protestant workers accept literally the Gospel 
stories of the birth of Jesus—with their emphasis on 
angelic appearances, a wonder-working star, and 
miraculous conception—or do they share the convic- 
tions of liberals that legendary elements have been in- 
troduced into the narrative? Statement No. 74, The 
gospel accounts of the birth of Christ contain legendary 
material was marked True by 


35.1% of Group A 
50.0% “ ue 
50.9% “ re ® 
82.1% “ jel) 
40.5% “ oy uly 
38% “ Bev Lt 
929% “ eG 
83.5% “ ae EL 
83.3% “ Hat 
95.1% “ mpl 


178 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


On this point there was a wide divergence of opinion 
between members of summer conferences (Group A) 
and the student groups. Note also the difference on 
this point between the two groups in_ theological 
schools (Groups F and G); and the relatively low 
scores made by the graduates of a denominational 
training school (Group E) as well as the students 
attending the same training school (Group B). 

The majority of the church workers tested believe 
that John the son of Zebedee wrote the Fourth Gospel. 
This makes it probable that they fail to discriminate 
between the historicity of the events narrated in this 
Gospel and those found in the synoptics. Statement 
No. 5, John the son of Zebedee was the writer of the 
Fourth Gospel, was marked True by 


70.2% of Group A 


92.3% B 
58.5% (a4 9 C 
53.6% ce ée D 
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OTe ea as 
514%“ “ FA 
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Boog! ith) Me nny 


The four groups in which less than 50% of the mem- 
bership are convinced that the Gospel was written by 
the disciple John have a total membership of only 
141 out of 451 in all the special groups. 

Is a Christian to be defined by his belief in the 
deity of Christ? Such certainly is the traditional posi- 


COMPETENCY OF RELIGIOUS WORKERS 179 


tion. Liberals on the other hand maintain that the 
best definition of a Christian is not in terms of doc- 
trinal assent but in terms of social function, of char- 
acter. Statement No. 6, A Christian rs well defined 
as a person who believes in Jesus Christ as God and 
Saviour, was challenged,—that is, marked False, by 


54.4% of Group A 


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Bric aN Ca ay G: 
444% © €§ D 
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508% %. © UF 
254 « € G 
716% @ 0" 
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On this point there are interesting conflicts of opinion. 
75% of the members of the council of the Fellowship 
of Reconciliation (Group I) discarded the traditional 
viewpoint, while 71.5% (Group G) of the membership 
of one of the progressive seminaries accepted it as 
true. Church workers meeting in a summer con- 
ference were about evenly divided, 54.4% marking 
it False and 45.6% True. 

The function of Christianity in society depends to 
a large extent upon the question as to whether or not 
the characteristic practices of religion are regarded 
as capable of interrupting the operation of scientific 
laws. It is noteworthy that over forty per cent in 
several of the groups tested believe that prayer can 
alter natural laws. Statement No. 23, Faithful prayer 


180 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


has the power to alter natural laws, was accepted as 


True by 
43.9% of Group A 


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We cannot expect religious workers to join heartily 
in the purposes of liberal Christianity for the recon- 
struction of our industrial civilization if they see noth- 
ing radically wrong in the present organization of 
industry. To Statement No. 15, Although some per- 
sons take advantage of our industrial system to gain 
unworthy ends, at bottom our industry is organized on 
a fundamentally Christian basis, 


52.6% of Group A answered True 


53.8% has 
30.2% “ rete eA. 
28.6% “ te a1) 
37.8% “ Bi, 
18.0% “ LASS |) 
214% “ arate 6 
23.9% “ ae 8 | 
None “ Wee 
24% ¢ (73 Aj 


It is surprising to find among church workers the 
persistence of the idea of a double standard of sex 


COMPETENCY OF RELIGIOUS WORKERS 181 


morality. A few of the workers tested—more than 
25% of Group A—are in favor of more severe laws 
for women sex offenders than for men. The returns 
on Statement No. 21, In order to protect the future of 
the race, the law must demand a higher standard of sex 
morality from women than from men, are as follows: 


26.4% of Group A marked this True 
19.2% (f3 (T9 
76% (v3 (73 
10.7% (f3 (f9 
None 73 (f9 
10.0% <3 “ 
7.1% “cs (t9 
5.9% ‘ce 66 
None 
None i 3 6c 


Two statements concern the relation of the church 
and of individual Christians to the problem of war 
between nations. 

Has the church of Christ any distinctive standards? 
Should it criticize—as the prophets did—the actions 
of a whole nation, even in the event of a national 
moral act such as the declaration of war? Has it a 
distinctive function among community organizations 
in bringing to bear upon every action, national as well 
as individual, the standards of Jesus? 

With Statement No. 48, When war is declared, the 
churches should be at least as ready as other com- 
munity forces to rally to the support of the govern- 
ment, the groups tested are in overwhelming 
agreement. Only the members of Group I unite in 


Hemormsoaw 


182 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


dissenting. The four groups in which over 60% of 
the membership disagree with the statement have a 
total of only 82 members. 


66.7% of Group A marked it True 


“ 


92.3% 3 
54.7% “ ere 
750% “ See aa, 
70.38% “ A 
426% “ cea Ci 
214% “ ogee: © 
43.1% “ gett | 
None “ Apaeiat | 
23.8% (<9 ce Ay 


Whether, in the event of war, an individual’s con- 
science is to employ a specifically Christian standard 
is considered in Statement No. 86, When the very life 
of the nation is threatened, the conscience of the in- 
dividual should conform to the necessities of national 
defense. Here again, a large proportion are in favor of 
directing one’s conscience by the standards of the 
existing state rather than by other motives (for Chris- 
tians presumably the teachings of Jesus). The returns 
are as follows: 

68.6% of Group A marked it True 


80.3% B 
45.38% “ sat 
60.7% “ aaa eB, 
54.1% “ Beat (eg 
AT.1% “ Agee iW th 
35.7% ce if4 G 
450% “ pete ss | 
None “ Sa 
23.8% “ hal: 


COMPETENCY OF RELIGIOUS WORKERS 183 


Limitation of space prevents further discussion of 
returns. From this brief survey, however, it is evi- 
dent that the essentials of liberal Christianity, as here 
defined—including requisite information and _ atti- 
tudes—have not become the property to any large 
measure of the Protestant religious workers available 
for this inquiry. Moreover, these are the people, if 
there are any, who should show the effects of the 
liberal movement. They do not show either a firm 
grasp of items of historical knowledge that are essen- 
tial nor the attitudes toward life which liberalism is 
supposed to develop. The mass of religious workers 
over the country are no doubt even less well prepared 
to carry out the purposes of liberal Christianity. 


CHAPTER VIII 
CONCLUSION 


The outline of the distinctive positions of liberal 
Christianity presented in Chapters I and II led us to 
recognize certain objectives as essential to the task of 
Christian education undertaken from the liberal point 
of view. These concerned the relation of the religion 
of Jesus to significant social issues, and were grouped 
for convenience under the ten headings suggested— 
the Bible, Theological Dogmas, the Historical Jesus, 
Social Welfare, the Reconstruction of Society, the 
Political State, International and Inter-racial Prob- 
lems, Human Nature, the Educational Process, the 
Church. 

In the attempt to answer our main questions, T'o 
what extent has Protestant religious education adopted 
the educational objectives implied in the liberal move- 
ment? evidence has been drawn from three sources— 
(1) leading writers in religious education, (2) denom- 
inational and interdenominational agencies for re- 
ligious education, and (3) curriculum material used 
in the church school. Finally, a brief investigation 
was made of workers in religious education to discover 
whether they are prepared to deal with the facts and 
standards involved in the liberal movement. The re- 
sults of these various lines of inquiry have been noted. 
Beyond question, the picture of the present situation 

184 


CONCLUSION 185 


which they present is not that of a system of educa- 
tion efficiently adapted to spread among the people 
either the ascertained knowledge, which is one factor 
in liberalism, or the religious attitudes and conduct 
that liberalism implies. The people at large cannot 
be expected to be better educated than their leaders. 
Nor can we expect that the Protestant community as 
a whole will assume responsibility for the radical 
reconstruction of society implied in liberalism until 
the organizations directing educational policies and the 
text-books that influence both the teacher and the 
taught represent more adequately the purposes of 
liberal Christianity. 

That the purposes of liberalism are not now widely 
active in controlling the life of American Protestant- 
ism is glaringly apparent from such well known facts 
as the following. Premillenarianism flourishes, and 
men and women in large numbers are abandoning any 
expectation of reconstructing the world by ethical 
processes. A recrudescence of opposition to evolu- 
tion is widespread and is taking many forms, from 
attacks on a museum of natural history to legislative 
efforts to abolish the teaching of evolution in our 
schools and colleges. Talk of heresy trials appears 
frequently in our newspapers. On many sides there 
is earnest and forceful affirmation of unscientific and 
pre-critical views of the Bible and of Christian doc- 
trines. Indeed, nearly every Protestant denomination 
is witnessing within its ranks some upflaming of 
bigotry and intolerance. 

We are in a situation where such things as these 


186 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


happen. One of the reasons that they are possible 
is obvious from the foregoing study. It is evident 
that opportunity is not being given for people gen- 
erally to know better. Even in religious bodies made 
up of the intellectually favored and in groups con- 
sidered progressive, the items of knowledge and the 
religious attitudes essential to liberalism are not 
being taught. Liberals themselves have apparently 
assumed that it was enough to emphasize certain 
aspects of religion previously neglected (such as social 
welfare, and international brotherhood) without meet- 
ing squarely the issues now alive in Protestantism 
or raising other issues of immense importance. 

The constructive suggestions that grow out of this 
study stand forth with perhaps obvious clearness. 

1. Religious education must give more attention 
to facts as facts. Facts about the Bible must be 
made available for the people at large, for children 
as well as adults. It is no less important to take into 
account ascertained social facts in which human 
welfare is concerned. 

2. Not only must the scientific attitude of open- 
mindedness and inquiry be consciously followed by 
leaders in religious education but scientific methods of 
analysis and inference must be introduced into the 
teaching of religion for all ages. This will necessarily 
involve the development of a technique for the study 
and evaluation of social problems as they arise in 
specific situations. 

3. Liberal religious education must seek to develop 
new appreciations of the way of life taught by Jesus 


CONCLUSION 187 


and new moral sensitiveness to the relation of his 
teachings to present day life. 

4, Investigations and experiments looking toward 
the reconstruction of the whole plan and process of 
religious education must be conducted, including 
studies of curricula, organizations, and the status and 
growth of individual pupils. Instruments of measure- 
ment should be prepared and standardized—for diag- 
nostic uses, to estimate the results of the teaching of 
religion, and to make possible the comparison of one 
school or process with another. 

5. If the foregoing suggestions are followed, we 
may expect to see a radical revision of the announced 
purposes of religious education. They will no longer 
be formal and static, expressed in generalities, more 
or less the same year after year. On the contrary, 
the objectives of religious education will develop out 
of specific recognition of present issues and the delib- 
erate weighing of present facts by the principles of 
Jesus. The various boards and agencies will become 
more plastic; as they seek to modify current events 
in definite ways they will themselves be modified 
thereby. Text-books will be rewritten, much of the 
present material being discarded and replaced by dis- 
cussions of the great issues of our time. ‘'Teacher- 
training classes will become groups investigating to- 
gether facts of tremendous social importance and 
learning together methods of evaluation and skill in 
social action. A like process will become operative 
in groups of children, even very young children. 

As an illustration of the changes to be expected, 


188 LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY 


consider a single issue, that of war between nations. 
At present most of the organizations for religious 
education fail to give any recognition to this issue, 
although some of the text-books extol a peaceable 
spirit and many of them seek to inculcate in their 
readers a generalized amiability and kindliness. In 
religious education representing liberal Christianity 
this policy will be reversed. Christian organizations 
will investigate the facts of the late war, the causes 
leading to war, the proposed efforts to abolish future 
conflicts; and on the basis of the teachings of Jesus 
they will seek to bring about certain definite changes 
in regard to this issue. ‘Text-books will discuss how 
war is actually fought, the cost in men, in money, and 
in other ways, the work of the war department in 
time of peace, the significance of military training 
camps, and the like,—thus developing a realistic under- 
standing of the actualities of war. Groups of teach- 
ers, of young people, of little children, will bring to 
bear upon ascertained facts the principles of Jesus, 
and on the basis of that impact will form their own 
conclusions and act accordingly. As obviously neces- 
sary as all this will seem to be, it is not being done 
at the present time. The issue chosen is simply a 
convenient illustration of the practical working out of 
liberal religious education upon a specific point. 
These suggestions indicate some of the directions of 
reconstruction that are necessary if the organized 
religious education of the future is to represent the 
educational purposes implied in the liberal movement. 


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